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Capital of Nasty Electronic Magazine Volume III, Issue 18, AD MCMXCVIII Monday, November 2nd, 1998 ISSN 1482-0471 ------------------------------------------- Would you date yourself if you were gay? a) Yes b) Yes, but no fucking way would I kiss on the first date c) No d) Undecided ------------------------------------------- When John Glenn returns from space, everybody dress in Ape Suits. ------------------------------------------- 1. Editorial 2. Random Reminisces of Radio and Television 3. Film & TV 4. 5. Chain letter 6. This issue, at the movies... ------------------------------------------- This week's Golden Testicle award: Would you call these guys to do your webpage? http://www.titus.com By Jason MacIsaac ------------------------------------------- 1. Editorial MANY E-MAILS HAVE ARRIVED since the last issue of CoN. The complaints that your humble editor wrote in the last editorial did not fall on deaf ears, and so I was able to raise a couple of fingers on my other hand. The first e-mail arrives from Rev.Sean C. Rothstein-Jacobson. While I am cutting through the entire section where he mocks me since he gets many more replies than I do to his rants, this part deserves a mention: > INRE: 'The Last Dinosaur' > > STOP DIS-ING THAT PIECE- christ onna crux folks! I take it you prefer > short stories because novels require an attention span? Why dont ya > go crack a beer and plop down in front of the tube with the rest of > "civilization" and shut it! I thought it was one of the funniest > things I'd read in a helluva long time and would LOVE IT if more of > them appeared here (plus Leandro would get piles more abusive mail > to abuse). I have never seen the movie and yet after reading the > piece, I was there! I have REAL MEMORIES of watching the movie > from having read the damn thing. I can see it in moving frames > in my head! When was the last time YOU wrote something that did > that to a total stranger? EVER? WILL you EVER write something that > evokative? If you dont have time/abilility to read it, you sure as > hell dont have the right to rail it. The best e-mail is from John Cello: > I understand your concern about the lack of e-mail you receive. > I am as guilty as the rest about not corresponding. > > While I read every word of each issue, I take no umbrage to the > content of the articles. The readers who flame you about a particular > issue or segment obviously don't read far enough through to get to > the unsubscribe instruction. Or the bastards just like to bitch. > > E-zines are generally looked at as just that much more internet > content. Produced by faceless entities that the average surfer > could give a shit about. CapO'Nasty appeals to me because it is > an open forum. No topic is sacred, which is at it should be. > While I don't always agree with the content, I understand > the right to have different opinions. I also understand that there > are real, live human beings producing it. > > I would hate to see you change anything about your zine, save for > there to be more of it. You are all doing a great job. Keep up the > good work. It's nice to know that someone out there appreciates what we do. Even if they don't always agree with it. And yes, there are real live human beings behind CoN that actually do read your mails. And sometimes we even reply. For funniest e-mail, Francisco Gonzalez (who also goes by with the name of Luke de Sade) shows us that Jason MacIsaac is lucky to have dropped just his pen: > Hey, Capital of Nasty III. 17 was the first issue I received. I > must say that CoN kicks ass. I was laughing hard with the > anecdotes the writers had to offer, but the one that "clicked" > with me the most was MacIsaac's "I've dropped my pen... Time for > a killing spree." Why? well, something similar happened to me. > It happened six months ago. I had a cool job, a nice girl, and I > bought a new paraqueet. I loved that paraqueet as I loved my cat > and my girl and my job. But everything's not good, you see. There > was a bad week where my girlfriend realized that I wasn't giving > her as much sex as she deserved (go figure) so she broke with me > and went away with one of my best friends. Ok, a girl is > replaceable. Hehe, or so I thought. Then I was fired the next day. > Ok, I could get another job. I still had my paraqueet and my cat. > Until my cat decided it was time to show the paraqueet who was boss > in the house and ate it. The cat ate the paraqueet, ok. But he > choked on his beak. > Damn, I was demolished. But I was copping with it. You know? > Everything was alright. I still had my Playstation to play with > and to forget the shit that happened that week. > Then came the day. The dreaded day when I unintentionally let the > PS fall to the floor and break open. It was damaged, and so was my > psyche. I almost killed my ex-girlfriend and my ex-best friend > (for real) and I almost killed myself. > Just for my Sony Playstation. MOVIES NEWS PAGE -- For those tired of having to surf several webpages just to find information about upcoming movies, Jeff Wright, our own CoN Movie specialist, has set up a page which contains all the information found worth of regurgitating in the past month. Jeff will update this page every month, and eventually (as soon as time permits) set up a digest form, so that people can receive updates directly through their e-mails. To find out more about it, or to witness this miracle in creation, you can set your browsers to surf here: http://members.xoom.com/the4thworld/coolnewsX12.htm THE NEXT ISSUE of CoN will deal with Gay and Lesbians. At the time of writing we have ONE spot left. As many have asked through their e-mails (actually, only two people), CoN does accept submissions from their readers. Our only modification, beside correcting major spelling mistakes, is to edit the piece so that it fits our 72 characters per line standard. Enjoy this issue. ------------------------------------------- 2. Random Reminisces of Radio and Television By Jason MacIsaac This ish of CoN is about TV, and it so happens that I'm uniquely qualified to talk about it. I studied it in school. In fact, I have a Bachelor of Applied Arts in Radio and Television. No joke! I am therefore definitively able to give answers and insight on TV. I'm an expert. Although I haven't read the other articles people submit, I'm guessing they all pretty much lean towards the same conclusion: TV sucks. And yes, as an expert, I can say with authority that TV sucks. But what most people aren't aware of is the extent to which it sucks. You only see the finished product. Let me tell you, a great deal of sucking goes on behind the scenes too. And yes, you can have multiple interpretations of "sucking" in the last sentence and have it still be accurate. I was there right from the beginning--going to school learning how to do television. And believe me, if you think you have a low opinion of TV now, try studying it school. Let me qualify that by saying it's not that I didn't enjoy my time in school. In fact, I loved it. I was sad when I was over. I met lots of interesting people while I was there, including the executive producers of The Simpsons and even one of Seinfeld's staff writers. The students were a riot (we had one or two of the usual losers, but nothing you wouldn't find in other education program) and I even liked most of my teachers (we had one or two of the usual losers, but nothing you wouldn't find in other education program). The problem is, take that glossy, flashy emptiness of TV. Now imagine building a personality along those lines. It's not that there aren't good people in TV. But let's just say that the general environment isn't really conducive to being an honest, down to Earth person. You could see that in some of the students already. Several of them had a head start on being shallow, empty-headed packaging. These people had no useful skills whatever. If a nuclear war devastated the planet and you had to restart civilization with a handful of people, these people would not be designated engineers, or lawmakers, or farmers. Instead you would cannibalize them on day two. TV I think was created for these type of people to succeed. Again, there were plenty of good people. And you know what? A lot of them are too nice, too smart, and too hardworking for their own good. It's not likely they'll get in. A friend of mine I know does have a successful career as a freelance scriptwriter, and another did somehow become the producer of a religious show (She's violently anti-religious too, which should give you a good idea of how TV operates). The rest of them seem to be have trouble going beyond minor jobs at local cable stations. Strangely, learning TV at school produced some of the most boring and awful courses ever devised. You'd think it would be interesting or comfortably mindless--didn't we like, watch a lot of TV? Well, yes we did. But we did more writing, constructing, designing and analyzing TV stuff to really watch a lot of it. By the way, if you think watching a bad TV show is unbearable, try deconstructing "Who's the Boss" scene by scene, due Monday. You probably say something like "Can't I do something more fun, like give cows enemas or something?" We had one brutal two-hour Friday morning class called "Survey of Media." Popularly known to the students as "Survey of Tedium." And look, I know you've had your boring classes, but I will not listen to your claims that you had the most boring class ever. I'm telling you now without a doubt in my mind that Survey of Tedium was the most boring class ever, and I will not entertain arguments to the contrary. It was the most skipped class out of any other in the program. And we "learned" things like how many kilohertz Radio Bulgaria operates on. For two hours. The exam was legendary, but this is a patented Kenn Scott ((tm)) story that I don't have the rights too. Maybe I can encourage him to write the story some day. He was so scarred by the experience that he kept a copy of the exam, just so people would believe what we went through. Another unpleasant memory that comes to mind is on the final day of classes, second year. Most people were skipping classes left and right that day. For some reason that I will always regret, I went to one class that I normally skipped (all year). They were showing a documentary that we were to sit back and watch. Easy class, right? Wrong. The documentary was on diarrhea. No, I'm serious. Right before lunch too. Some other students would walk in late. As they arrived at the door, I would wave them off and yell "NOOOOO! It's too late for me, save yourselves! RUN!" I had friends to keep me sane though, and insulate me from the dead- weight. You know, the vain, space cadet types with no kind of aesthetic sensibility whatever. Of course, the vain, space cadet types with no kind of aesthetic sensibility whatever are probably driving Italian sports cars to work now. There were a few that were so useless they had a genius for it. One person in particular that I'll refer to as "Julie," though her real name is Catherine Mahoody, and she can reached at cmahoody@deadtv.com. Julie had the brilliant ability to get everyone to do her work for her. In part because she was drop-dead gorgeous. I think she also had some kind of mind-controlling ability too, because she turned hardened men into putty and then moulded them into ashtrays. If she was in your project group you can bet she would do nothing while you did her share of the project, and quite possibly her grocery shopping too. You'd see nothing wrong with this. You were under her spell. After she was done with you she'd move along to her next victim, leaving you feeling kind of stupid. The men out there will be familiar with the feeling you get when you realize that a woman has used sex to completely manipulate you (if you're lucky). You feel embarrassed, yet not exactly bad for what you've done. In Julie's case, it was like getting fucked, but without the sex, and yet you didn't. I remember one poor friend of mine, Eddie, saddled with her as a partner on a school project. She wouldn't show up most of the time, so he'd wander her the call forlornly calling "Julie!" He tried to reform himself later, with a different project. When partnerships were being formed, he stayed well away from her. But she used the ol' Julie Jedi Mind Trick on him. She asked if she could be his partner again. As it happens, Eddie already had a partner, but you were allowed to have three people in your group. With superhuman effort, my friend managed to gasp "Ask John." John was the other partner in the group. So Julie went up to John and said "Eddie said I can be in your group." And so she was in. Yes, he's a Grade A chump for falling for her tricks twice, but I'm in no position to pass judgement on him. My memory is hazy, but I'm pretty sure I did her laundry once. And I regret nothing. In fact, I think I thanked her. If she were to show up in my life again she'd probably have my credit card in no time. No, scratch that, she probably has no use for me now. She probably lives in a mansion with enough cars to match her dresses, and uses naked Chippendale dancers for furniture. I'm small potatoes now. Those are just a few of the shenanigans that immediately come to mind. There are many more. These are the people who will in theory be in charge of mass media in the new millennium. And this is a small sample of what they went through at school. Out there in the unreal world (strictly speaking, TV doesn't have a real world) things get even crazier. I'm not working in radio or TV, and for that, I am grateful. You may think that your job has petty politics and stupidity where style is valued over substance. I'm sure it's no picnic, but remember, TV is the environment where these people flourish. With in mind is it really any wonder that Pamela Anderson got a second series? ------------------------------------------- 3. Film & TV by Jeff Wright I'm writing this on very little sleep. Friday night I went to bed around 3. Woke up on Saturday at 9:30, I worked all day, then my friend came over to watch some movies for Halloween and left around 4 in the morning, so that's when I went to sleep. I had to be up the next day at 10. Once up, I went and helped my friend shoot a film for school (things went very wrong, and it would almost be another article), went to a movie cuz I was in the neighbourhood and finally went to sleep around 1. I woke up at 10 this morning, it's 2:30 right now, and I've been working on the movie news website thing that is hopefully linked somewhere in this issue (just in case - http://www.members.xoom.com/the4thworld/coolnewsX12.htm), and writing up the movie suggestions for this issue since then. Actually, that isn't that bad as far as amount of sleep goes, but I'm EXAUSTED none the less, and I have to work 6 hours in about an hour. Here's my idea since I don't have the time to sit down and write a huge article on film & tv (which I would love to do). How about we write a film script through CoN. I'll write the first couple of pages now, then people can send in the next section of the script (no longer than 5) and all the folks of CoN plus myself can vote on which person's entry we like the most and put it in the next issue. Then we repeat the process each issue until we've got a feature length screenplay which would have to belong to CoN I guess because of legal shit. So if you send something in, you have to agree that it becomes the writing of CoN. This sounds really bad, but I know that there can be some ugly legal suits over scripts and whatnot. I think this will be fun, and a neat way for some people who haven't written a script before, to test the waters. So anyways, here's my part: INT. POLICE STATION. DAY. A COP brings in a criminal to be booked. The criminal turns around real slow, and stares at the cop dead in the eyes. The cop whips him back around. The criminal starts to slowly turn around again. This time when the cop tries to turn him around, the criminal doesn't budge. The cop pulls out his club. The criminal headbutts the cop, then beats him to death with the club. He grabs the cop's gun, and the handcuff keys. He walks out of the station, pointing the gun at everyone, without even saying a word. He then runs and hails a cab, which takes him away from the station. EXT. A PARK. DAY. A cop posts up a wanted poster for the criminal. We find out his name is GABRIEL MUNSOARNOTT. And that he's a wanted arsonist. INT. AN APARTMENET. DAY. the apartment belongs to Gabriel's sister JUILA. Gabriel is giving her a brief case full of money. GABRIEL Keep this for me. JULIA No! It's not my money. GABRIEL Yes it is. Well most of it is. I need some of it to live off of until next week. JULIA What's happening next week? GABRIEL A big score. I'm getting rid of a building for 500 thou. JULIA What kind of a building? GABRIEL Hospital. JULIA What? That's fucking sick. GABRIEL I'm gonna pull the fire alarm first. I don't want people to die. JULIA Then why are you doing it. It'll take forever to evacuate the hospital. They'll know there isn't a fire before everyone is out. Then they'll start back in, and you'll have to actually start the fire. GABRIEL I guess some of them'll have to die then. I need the money. I'm going to start my own business with it. It'll get me away from this sort of work. No more arson for me. JULIA Except for when you're with your fucking friends. Then there's a lot of arse on. Fucking fags. GABRIEL Fuck you. Tony's gay. None of the other guys are. You think that just because we hang around with him... never mind. JULIA I'm kidding. Shit. GABRIEL Anyways, I gotta go. JULIA To get some matches? GABRIEL If that's what you want to believe, fine. JULIA Don't burn down any churches on the way to the store. GABRIEL You're such a bitch. JULIA And you're such an asshole. But I love you. GABRIEL Love you to sis. See ya. Gabriel and Julia kiss, and Gabriel leaves.. ------------------------------------------- 4. Television by Leandro Asnaghi-Nicastro Since the advent of the Internet, way before the dawn of browsers and Windows compatible programs, I stopped watching television. Why? The reason is simple: Commercials. I hate them with the passion. Now, Television on it's own offers very little. Like "Weird" Al Yankovic says in one of his songs "I hooked up 80 channels, and each one stunk", you can't help it but agree. So between bad shows and the advertising that interrupts it, I tend to keep the TV off all the time. In my house the TV is used for two things: watching the news if I didn't have th chance to buy a newspaper, and using it as a mean to view the videos I rent from the video store. At least, you can fast- forward with those annoying 15 minutes presentations on movies you'll never care to watch, and know that you can sit down and watch something without having to know how many doctors recommend Preparation H. Which brings me to an interesting point. I have four doctors, and none of them has ever told me to use Preparation H. Well, I don't need it just yet, but they haven't even told me to use Tylenol or anything like that. Even my dentist doesn't say "Use Colgate, so you'll have to come here less". He says "Make sure you brush the way I told you, and here's my bill". That last part, is usually where I pass out with no need of anaesthetics. Unfortunately, it happens that sooner or later I'll watch TV. Usually this happens at someone else's house, and because, well, for once the program is somewhat interesting. Now, some commercials are cool. They make you laugh, they entertain you and you actually don't mind watching them, because even-though they are delivering a commercial message, they are so well done, you just have to watch them. Sure, they interrupted your movie for the fucken' Nth fucking time, but you know, it's the funny one, who cares? Unfortunately these are rare. The rest seem to lack any edge of imagination, other than being a breakthrough in apathy. Take the top 5 commercials that appear on TV these days: Beer: now beer is a weird one. I mean, I enjoy my nice pint of Guinness with the boys at my favourite pub, but beside getting light headed on my second one, I don't feel cooler. There are no skimpy dressed women running around me. I mean, this is not like the juice from the cup of the Holy Grail. It's malt gone bad with alcohol. Diapers: oh gawd. It seems that I was the only baby in the world that was unlucky to get my ass wet when I was little. Okay, so you buy this brand which absorbs more than the others, and it keeps your butt smooth. That's great, but I mean, beside me, when I am wiping myself, and my girlfriend, who else is going to care that my butt is smooth? Other than the paedophiles... Detergents: being a guy, you are probably thinking, I shouldn't be speaking. Guys tend to buy the same brand, without looking at name or price. If it says the words "Detergent" on it, and you are looking for detergent, we have a winner. But I work in a Grocery Store, I know all the brands and prices. I buy the "no name" brand now, because, if you look carefully at who makes it, it's the exact same people that make the ultra-expensive one that supposedly washes better. Put in clothes, put in detergent, run washing machine and usually my clothes come out clean. Or of a different colour than before, or maybe smaller, but at least they are clean. (Yes, I know how to use a computer, but I have yet to learn how to use the washing machine). Shampoo: the most frightening thing for people in North America is to have dandruff. It's like, a mortal sin. Shame on you if you have dandruff, people will look at you in disgust and shame. That's why there are a ton of shampoos out there designed especially for removing dandruff. Now let me break a myth about anti-dandruff shampoos: they don't work. Sure, the dandruff might disappear after you wash them, but if you use that type of shampoo too many times, they will irritate your skin and give you dandruff. Air conditioning gives you dandruff. Bad life style gives you dandruff. So instead of wasting your time with a miracle product, change the way you live. Lastly Cars: what's with car commercials? This seems to be the most popular one ever. Shouldn't they ban them off the air? I mean, this is what's causing the holes in the ozone layer: too many cars. Too many cigarettes will kill you, so will too many cars. But to the point: there are too many commercials. The news are brought to you by so and so. The weather is brought to you by these other guys. The fucking clothes the guy is wearing while he tells you the news were kindly supplied by someone else. What was he wearing anyway, that was so special? And beside those stations that run no advertising, but bore you to death with their telethon sessions, where they want you to donate money so they can continue to provide commercial free programs, the other TV stations flood you with them. First they lure you in with the nice program, or some movie you really want to see. The first thing that gets to me is that the movie "has been edited for television". What exactly does that mean? It means that although you are spending two hours in front of the TV, the movie is actually one hour and 45 mins long. The editing was necessary to fit the ton of commercials that interrupt the movie for a good 15 minutes. The ads are usually spread out unevenly through the movie. They start with rare interruptions in the beginning which make the first hour of the movie watchable. The last half hour of the movie is a constant bombardment of ads, at times with the same one repeated a zillion times, where you even forget what exactly you were watching (I guess this explains why they say "The Simpsons will be right back" in between the 5th and 6th commercial, just in case your brain went to mush and you were trying to figure out why you were sitting in front of the telly). Sometimes it's so bad that you can switch channels and watch two movies at the same time, while avoiding the advertising. So that's why I don't watch TV anymore. I prefer to get my daily dosage of radioactivity from my monitor, which at least allows me to ignore the ads and read what I want, when I want it. ------------------------------------------- 5. Chain letters Courtesy of Marla "Ivy" Jones Hello, my name is Alfonso Merkin. I am suffering from rare and deadly diseases, poor scores on final exams, lack of sexual activity, fear of being kidnapped and executed by anal electrocution, and guilt for not sending out 50 billion fucking forwards sent to me by people who actually believe that if you send them, that poor 6 year old girl in Arkansas with lung cancer brought on by second-hand smoke from the cigarettes smoked by the big bad men who kidnapped her and took pornographic pictures of her for use on their child pornography web site will get 6 fucking cents every time you send me the letter. Do you honestly believe that Bill Gates is going to give you and everyone you send "his" email to $1000? How fucking stupid are you? Ooooh, looky here! If I scroll down this page and make a wish, I'll get laid by every Victoria's Secret model in the catalog! What a bunch of bullshit. So basically, this message is a big FUCK YOU to all the people out there who have nothing better to do than to send me stupid chain mail forwards. Maybe the evil chain letter leprechauns will come into my apartment and sodomize me in my sleep for not continuing the chain which was started by Jesus in 5 A.D. and was brought to this country by midget pilgrims on the Mayflower and if it makes it to the year 2000, it'll be in the Guinness Book of World Records for longest continuous streak of blatant stupidity. Fuck them. If you're going to forward something, at least send something mildly amusing. I've seen all the "send this to 50 of your closest friends, and this poor, wretched excuse for a human being will somehow receive a nickel from some "omniscient being" forwards about 90 times. I don't fucking care. Show a little intelligence and think about what you're actually contributing to by sending out forwards. Chances are it's your own unpopularity. P.S. Please forward this to at least 50 of your best friends! ------------------------------------------- 6. This issue, at the movies... by Jeff Wright Well this is my second movie sugestion thingee for CoN. The reason it's only my second is because Leandro (I know I said I wasn't gonna name names Leo, but I had to) forgot to put my last sugestions in the last issue. For those who're interested, I suggested Heathers, The Sweet Hereafter, and encouraged ya'll to go see The Faculty when it's released on Christmas. I also changed the style in which I do this thing in the last one. I only do two movies, I pick movies that relate to the issue's theme, do a bit of a summary, talk about aspects I like in the flic, who's in it, who made it, and I put a movie that I like of those people in parenthasese beside their names. That was a long and almost unintelligble sentence. I apologize. Anyways here's this issue's. #1 SWIMMING WITH SHARKS Kevin Spacey (Se7en) and Frank Whaley (Born On The Fourth Of July) star in this dark comedy, directed by George Huang (It was his debut, and I haven't seen his second flic). The basic story (really this isn't the story, but I don't want to ruin too much) is about a big wig at a Hollywood studio who is a complete asshole to his assistant. Spacey gives what I think is probably his best performance, and what he should have won an Oscar for in the year of The Usual Suspects. Just go see this one. If you like dark comedies, you'll thank me. Oh, and tell me if you don't have a hard time licking envelopes after watching the movie. Number Two LIVING IN OBLIVION Steve Buscemi (Reservoir Dogs), Cathrine Keener (Your Friends And Neighbours), and a few more star in Tom DiCillo's film (the only good one of his I've seen). The film is about the trials and tribulations of an independant film production. It's probably the funniest film on filmmaking I've seen. The film is driven by funny personalities on the set, and will have you busting a gut with its potshots at Brad Pitt, David Lynch dream sequences, and how everyone's written a script in Hollywood. Thanks for reading, Jeff ------------------------------------------- CoN would not be possible without the great help of Scriba Org. I WILL NOT EAT GRANDPAS REMAINS! I WILL NOT EAT GRANDPA'S REMAINS! DADDY, YOU SICK, EVIL, BAD MAN! Capital of Nasty Electronic Magazine "media you can abuse" In memory of Father Ross "Padre" Legere Published every second Monday (or when we get around it) Disclaimer: unintentionally offensive Comments, queries and submissions are welcome http://www.capnasty.org ISSN 1482-0471 A bi-weekly electronic journal. Subscriptions available at no cost electronically. Available on Usenet newsgroups alt.zines and alt.ezines. This mailing is sent exclusively to those poor souls who chose to subscribe to the Capital of Nasty mailing list. Spread the word! If you have friends who would like to receive CoN, ask them to send email to join@capnasty.org. If you'd like to unsubscribe because such email aggravates your Darma and Greg intolerance, simply send an empty message to leave@capnasty.org. Brought to you by C.C.C.P. (Collective Communist Computing Proletariat) Leandro Asnaghi-Nicastro Colin Barrett <leandro@capnasty.org> <tyrannis@capnasty.org> ZimID 708EC8D1 1994/09/14 EC B0 97 59 1D FE 7C 32 7E 04 2C 66 47 41 FB 7D