Capital of Nasty Electronic Magazine
Volume IV, Issue 5, AD MCMXCIX
Monday, March 15, 1999
ISSN 1482-0471
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"I don't like anything that takes more than a shotgun shell to stop."
  -- A comment, in regards to giant African spiders that require two 
shots to die.

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"God only knows what I'm up to
and even HE regrets knowing it."
  -- Away message.

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1. Editorial
2. Cannibalism, Roman Catholicism, and Mr. Potato Head
3. "Dear Mr. xxxxx"
4. Depression
5. When things are going just TOO well
6. Reasons to look FORWARD to depression

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This week's Golden Testicle award:

Christian Guide to Small Arms

http://www.frii.com/~gosplow/cgsa.html

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1. Editorial
By CoN Staff

Welcome to Issue 5 of CoN, only a whopping week late.  Last Monday, 
after hours of dreadful homework, I realized that CoN was due.  I 
looked into the CoN directory to see how the issue was going and 
noticed that I hadn't even started it.  "Oh well, tomorrow".

The "oh well, tomorrow" kept going as I was finishing assignments to 
prove further examples of my constant growing idiocy in school, that a 
whole week rolled by.  And another probably would've if I did not 
force myself to finish this before passing out on my bed.

My apologies.  I hope you'll enjoy this issue, while I keep the 
Editorial extra-short.  There have been quite a few submissions from 
the readership and if only a few of the stories are appearing now is 
my entire fault.  Not enough time.  Too much on my plate and an 
average of 100 e-mails a day arriving in my box that I haven't been 
able to sot out yet.  It's insane.

Our next issue of CoN, for the joy of women (or not, when they read my 
article) is about "all men are scum".  CoN invites any women out there 
subscribed to our humble zine to share their views and stories with 
the rest of us.

Until then, thank you for your support.

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2. Cannibalism, Roman Catholicism, and Mr. Potato Head

By Jason MacIsaac

(Connections, James Burke, top that!)

The other day I was in a local Burger King, and I started thinking 
about cannibalism.

Oh don't worry, they won't sue us.  I'm not implying that Burger King 
uses human flesh in its burgers, so the lawyers can settle down.  The 
fact that I was in a Burger King and the fact that I was thinking 
about cannibalism are purely coincidental.  The lawyers may wish to 
stick around for the part where I postulate that cannibalism is a more 
pleasant alternative to eating at Burger King again though.

Anyway, I started really thinking about cannibalism, because there was 
some artwork in BK depicting it. You see, they have this promotion 
with the Mr. Potato Head toy.  If you order some kids meal or other, 
you can pick from one of several Potato Head toys.  One of the toys 
was drawn on a small placard.  It showed a presumably wind-up Mr. 
Potato Head chasing a bag of french fries.

I realize there are all sorts of additives and chemicals in fast food, 
but it doesn't change the basic fact that french fries are made from 
potatoes.  And when Mr. Potato Head chases the bag of fries with that 
hungry look on his big-nosed and mustached face, they are depicting a 
character expressing a desire to commit cannibalism.

This is actually fairly common in the food industry.  For some reason, 
restaurants, food suppliers and super markets love to show things like 
cartoon turkeys encouraging you to buy a certain brand of turkey meat.  
Pigs salivating over a skillet of bacon.  Pickles serving other 
pickles on a tray to hungry consumers.

Does this not strike anyone else as being extremely gruesome?  Here we 
have a creature celebrating the demise of its own race.  Picture a 
cartoon of a roly-poly jolly man chasing a plate with a roast human 
thigh on it.  That's the equivalent!

Of course, this practice actually does occur, albeit it in a more 
solemn forum. Roman Catholics, for example, practice a kind of 
symbolic cannibalism.  Every time the priest raises that little wafer 
and says "Take this all of you and eat it, for this is my body," the 
idea is that this is now a piece of the body of Christ.  And let's not 
forget the wine. It's supposed to be Christ's blood.  You must be 
starving! Tuck in!

The idea of consuming your own God is actually a fairly deep one.  
Most Gods aren't like that.  Most of them get all prissy when a mortal 
so much as yawns during a party in their honor, then goes and turns 
them into a deer or something.  A far cry from actually letting them 
chow down on their own body.

Then it occurred to me, as I ordered my Whopper, that cannibalism 
actually has a long and proud tradition.  First, there is the 
Catholicism aspect. I've heard that a lot of primitive tribes 
practiced it, but I'm not sure how much stock to put in that. 

On the other hand, author Oscar Kiss Maerth actually has a theory that 
the whole evolution of the species is due to cannibalism.  I've never 
read his book, dramatically titled The Beginning Was the End, but 
apparently he's dug up evidence that the practice of cannibalism was 
so widespread throughout the world, that it actually determined the 
destiny of the human race.

Maerth believes that early man liked to chow down on other early men 
because human brain apparently was an aphrodisiac for them.  Eating 
brains increased intelligence, which he believed was hereditary, and 
eating lots of pituitary glands helped mutate the species, and we got 
less hairy.

No, I'm not making this up.  I'm getting this info from a book in the 
Great Mysteries series, called Mysterious Monsters by Daniel Farson 
and Angus Hall.  They only have a brief write up, which you're getting 
further diluted by my careless handling.  But that's okay, because the 
guy sounds like he should be surrounded by rubber walls at all times.

But if by some outside chance his theory is correct, and that human 
beings owe much of what they are to cannibalism, it would explain this 
Mr. Potato Head thing and why humans apparently don't mind cartoon 
characters butchering each other in order to promote our foodstuffs.  
It may also explain why there are some many "____ Ate My Balls" pages 
on the Internet. It would mean that human beings like cannibalism.  
But even if that's true, why is the practice forbidden now?  
Contemporary laws, ethics, and even some of our mythology do not 
encourage it.  

Perhaps it's because our choice of meal isn't very attractive any 
more.  I mean, look some our more prominent human beings.  You don't 
want to touch them, much less eat them.  I mean, would you eat Bill 
Gates?  There isn't a lot of meat on him to begin with.  Plus, he 
would probably crash your oven. Would you eat the Spice Girls (in the 
nonsexual fashion)?   If they are truly spicy, they would give you 
indigestion.  On the other hand, you could find out if one of them 
really does taste like ginger.  How about William Shatner?  It's true 
he's a ham, but you'd probably choke on his toupee.

As I chewed thoughtfully on my Whopper with Cheese and I went over 
these thoughts, I began to think of movies I'd seen with cannibalism.  
The first one that came to mind was The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and 
Her Lover. Helen Mirren is seen naked in the movie, so I thought about 
that instead. I'd make a play on this whole "eating" thing with 
Mirren, but that's too easy.  She may be getting older, but I still 
find that woman damned attractive.  Mighty fine actress, too.  You can 
keep your damned Jennifer Love-Hewitts, because I Don't Care What You 
Did Last Summer.

Despite the influences of Mr. Potato Head and Oscar Kiss Maerth, I 
really don't think we're all that into cannibalism.  Nah, the driving 
force behind our evolution has to be sex, because we're always trying 
to develop new ways to get it.  It's worthwhile to note that even the 
Mr. Potato Head people would seem to concur, because there is a Mrs. 
Potato Head, and even little Potato Head children.  So you know 
something's going on there.

Even if you don't see a placard of Mr. Potato Head chasing Mrs. Potato 
Head with a stick-on french fry erection.

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3. "Dear Mr. xxxxx"
By J.L.

     Break out of your cocoon eh? My how familiar that sounds. All of 
my friends are always calling me "hermit". They tell me I should get 
out more, to meet people, instead of sitting at home because "they 
aren't going to come knocking on my door". But what they don't know or 
understand is that I have to learn how to be happy on my own before I 
can be happy with someone else... know what I mean? Maybe we should 
have a little contest here... how long has it been since you have been 
on a date? I bet I have you beat.

    A lot of this is my own doing. I have purposely kept myself busy, 
(taking classes, etc.) to avoid relationships. The classes were also 
to improve myself though. It seems like all my life I have been 
putting things off, for this reason or that, and mainly for other 
people. That's why I moved up here in the first place. I hated my job 
in Des Moines, and the plan was to put the ex through nursing school, 
and then she was going to help me get through school, by getting a 
nursing job. We were also going to move out west. Well, obviously that 
didn't happen. And ever since I've moved up here, every woman I have 
met has been married, too young, or I just wasn't attracted to them.

    I think that I have finally gotten close to that point, more like 
my "old" self, but I know I'm still an emotional basket case. I watch 
TV shows or movies, and the tears just start coming. "Good Will 
Hunting" for example. I don't know if you've seen it, but, I still 
can't believe the way that movie got to me.

    I guess now is the time to explain my divorce. I was married for 3 
and a half years. All of them were bad. In retrospect it was a stupid 
thing to do, and I was pressured into it.  I married her because it 
was the "right thing to do". We were both supposed Christians, and we 
were living together "in sin". I really loved her, but I was never 
perfect enough for her. She also believed in speaking in tongues, and 
other things I couldn't understand, and everything had to be 
"Christian". All of my friends, our marriage counsellours, even our 
real estate agent. The counsellour suggested that I wasn't loving 
enough, and I admit that I was a very angry resentful person. To deal 
with the stress of our crappy marriage, I took up things like 
gardening, she took up bar hopping. Still, in the eyes of our 
counsellour, it was my fault because I wasn't showing her enough 
affection.

    I could go on and on, but to cut it short I'll just say that I 
eventually got to the point where I decided that if being a Christian 
meant being more like her, and the people that we were associating 
with, then I didn't want to be a Christian.

    I never cheated on her. She remarried within 3 months of our 
divorce. I filed for the divorce, she had a habit of moving out when 
things got really bad, and one time... the last time she moved out... 
I called a lawyer and filed.

    She was possessive, manipulative, and insanely jealous. She went 
through all of my photo albums and threw away every picture of every 
female I knew that wasn't related to me. She refused to speak to me 
until I called all of my old friends and told them that unless they 
were saved, I could never see or talk to them again. In the end she 
asked me how I got to be so cold. I couldn't even be myself around my 
family, because they weren't "saved". She forced me to choose between 
her and my Christian beliefs, or everyone I'd ever known, cared about 
or been friends with. How did I get to be so cold? I wonder.

    Three months after she remarried, and six months after our 
divorce, she called me and wanted to know if I would take her back. 
She said, in God's eyes we were never really divorced, and so she 
really wasn't married to her new husband.

    I told her 3 things. First she needed to pay me every cent that 
she cost me in the divorce, including the division of property. 
Second, that I hadn't loved her for a long time, that I only went to 
the counselling and things because it was the "right thing" to do, to 
try to save the marriage, something I told myself ever since I was 
young, that I would only do once. And last that she was a lunatic and 
needed some real counselling, not Christian counselling.

    I never heard from her again, except in a certified letter where 
she accidentally got my vehicle license tags. It started out with 
"Dear Mr. xxxxx"

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4.  Depressed people
By Leandro Asnaghi-Nicastro

I've always been pretty lousy at making people feel better when they 
are depressed.  Part of it has to do with the fact that some people 
seem to enjoy the eternal state of sadness as they believe it brings 
attention to them: "look at me, I am so miserable!" and love every one 
of us that feels pity and sympathy for them.  These people's real 
problem ain't much the dilemma they share with you, but the way they 
go about to get attention from others.  Not sure about you, but when 
you tell me that your grandfather is about to kick the bucket for the 
nth time, and he's still chugging along fine for the past two years, 
you secretly start to wish that sweet ol' granpa gets creamed by a 
bus.  At least you'll have something serious and real for once to 
whine about and I get to say "hey, shit happens".

The other reason is also, what can you say to someone that has been 
experiencing real life traumas?  I mean, I don't think I can make them 
feel any better by saying to someone who just lost both parents, is in 
debt up to their ears and kicked out of their house "well, shit 
happens, make the best out of it".  They will kill me.  No kidding 
shit happens.  But I suppose just being left alone or listened helps 
them, somewhat.

The other day I was at work.  It had been a long, hard day, and I was 
eagerly awaiting the last 15 minutes of my shift so I could get the 
hell out of there and enjoy what was left of the day to do something 
creative.  Or at least, that's the theory, as when you get home and 
you relax, the last thing you want to do is get dressed and go out 
again.

In the aisle I was standing in, making sure everything was in order 
for the next day, walks in Sandra.  Sandra is a young cashier that 
recently started working at the store, and since her sister works 
there, she got the job without any problems.  Sandra, au contraire of 
her sister, is one of those young girls that will make you look twice 
and you feel yourself saying "wooah, down boy - slap slap slap".  She 
is also only sixteen.

Which brings me to a point: when I went to high school, girls in my 
class who were 16 years old looked and behaved as if they were 16 
years old.  Nowadays, I'm not sure if the girl I am staring at is 16 
or 26.  You can't tell.  You go out to a club, start dancing with 
someone and the next thing you know, the 25 years old you were body 
rubbing with could be your daughter.

Sandra surely doesn't look sixteen.

So I see her staring at me at the end of the aisle with a sad look on 
her face.
"Hey, Sandra, what's the sad look on your face for?"
Not a word.  She just walks closer and tears are going down from her 
eyes as if someone left a faucet open inside her head.  I wipe the 
tears off her face thinking "well, maybe I shouldn't have done that, 
God only knows where my hands have been all day".
At least that was the general idea of my thought, as the next thing I 
know she's hugging me and crying.

Was this anyone else I work with and that I know quite well, I 
wouldn't mind, but as far as I was concerned, the most Sandra and I 
have said to each other has been "Hi Leo!" to which I reply with a 
"Hey." and of course whatever question she has in regards to prices or 
backorders from the warehouse.  Not exactly what I'd call stimulating 
conversation.

I am not even holding her.  My hands are apart as if I was Jesus re-
incarnated blessing his disciples.
"What's wrong?" I hear myself say.
"My daddy had a heart attack!  And this is probably the last one his 
weak heart can handle" - well, that's terrible.  Or at least, it must 
be.  For some reason I am not much shocked of the heart attack per se, 
but the fact that she's hugging me and crying on my chest.
I also felt the need to say something to reassure her, with the hopes 
she'd let go of me, nobody saw us and the cops wouldn't come and 
arrest me for indecency with a minor the next morning.
"Well, don't worry, things are going to get better!" I said.  Had I 
purposely been thinking hard to say something retarded, I never 
would've said something that stupid.

"Y-you really think so?" was her muffled reply of her face pressed 
against my chest.
"Yes, of course!  I mean, he's uh.. weak at the moment and so.. uh.. 
he needs to relax.. you just have to be there and help him until he 
gets better and he'll be as strong as a horse again!".  Right.

Suddenly I began to worry about her face being pressed against my 
chest.  I had been working for 9 hours straight that day, and since 
one of the freezers had died on us, we had to do one of our typical 
"toss the box" game.  Basically a row of guys throwing boxes from one 
end to another so that nothing melted.  And when you do stuff like 
this, you sweat.  A lot.

So for sure I didn't smell pretty.  "Why does she insist on keeping 
her face pressed against my chest?  I must smell terrible!  Never mind 
her father!"
I know, shame on me.  But honestly that was the line of thought that 
was going through my head.  I wasn't really concerned with her dad 
being on the verge of death and the trauma she might experience being 
orphan of a father at such young age.  I was worried about my clothes 
drenched in sweat.

Finally I found the courage to grab her shoulders and gently pull her 
away from me.  I said to her "life is shit and it doesn't matter how 
unfair or shitty it seems, it is up to us to make the best of it.  If 
this is happening, there must be a reason which we can't understand.  
Go, be with him, help him, and make sure he gets better, as bad things 
come and go".  To me it seemed like the biggest pile of shit I 
could've ever said.  I was waiting for her to say "oh, fuck off!" but 
instead she smiled, thanked me for being so supportive, hugged me 
again, and left.

I watched her hop away with one thought in my head: "only sixteen".

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5. When things are going just TOO well
By IMPROV

Seeing as I have very little time to write an actually article lately, 
I decided to make a list of things that depress me for this chipper 
issue.... hopefully some of you can relate, and if not don't be afraid 
to make a list of your own, because, whenever things are going just 
too damn good, we all need something to bring us back to earth.  So 
here we go:

THE FOLLOWING THINGS DEPRESS ME, IMPROV:

Any Olsen twin show.

An old man alone on a park bench.

A worm stranded on the sidewalk after a storm.

An Overtime loss.

Long distance prices.

Chipped paint.

The fact that my mother thinks, "that Jeff Foxworthy isn't just funny, 
he's wise."

Rotten fruit.

Carrottop.

Death, unless it's an Olsen twin.

The M*A*S*H episode where Henry Blake dies, I swear I cry every time I 
see it.

Albinos, no wait, they just creep me out.

Jerry Springer's popularity.

Unused utensils that gather dust.

Drug use.

The fact that no one remebers "The Great Space Coaster".

People who think, "everything is going to be okay."

The realization that I'm no longer innocent.

The fact that Night Court isn't in syndication.

Missing children, unless it's an Olsen twin.

The fact that I hardly talk to my Dad, and when I do...I don't have 
anything to say.


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6.   Reasons to look FORWARD to depression
By Mescalin

Depression, it's so serious.

Damnit, it's just not funny for breakfast anymore

I should know. I suffer from the rather annoying problem of having a 
natural facial expression that looks depressed. You know... there's 
some people that have a naturally worried look when they're just 
bopping along minding their own business, not thinking of anything in 
particular. There's some who walk like they're mad and stomp 
everywhere but they're okay, it's just what they do naturally. And 
there's Pamela Anderson who looks like a couple of hockey-rink-issued 
air-horns exploded in her lungs but she's a freak of pop culture that 
gets fondled on South American beaches and there's nothing natural 
about her or that at all. Well, personally I just naturally tend to 
look depressed when I'm just thinking to myself though I like to think 
I'm as far from it as most humans get.

But every once in awhile I find myself lost in a thought of some kind 
and some UNkind soul will jostle me back to this section of the galaxy 
with a grin that can only be described as "Teletubby". The following 
conversation will then quickly ensue:

Smiler: Hey, cheer up! Don't look so sad!

Me: Huh? What I wasn't sad? I was just thinking of something.

Smiler: Well, don't think such unhappy thoughts!

Me: No, I was just thinking about something I wanted to do that's all, 
I tend to...

Smiler: (cutting in)Well, lighten up! It'll get done okay! Don't 
worry!

Me: I wasn't sad or worried, I was just thinking...

Smiler:(cutting in again) Well, then stop thinking so much, silly!

Me: Grrr...

Oh, TV what have you taught us?

(BTW: Doesn't that lady in the Dempster's bread commercial look like a 
creepy version of Margaret Atwood enjoying a loaf of bread just WAY 
too much? This was not the kind of Freudian imagery my mind requires, 
thank you!)

What I have to look forward to in life, of course, is every issue of 
CoN in my e-mail box like the prize from a box of cereal being 
Purolatored to my front door. So, of course, I can be thankful that in 
an issue on depression most people won't be too serious about 
depression. So without further ado and with the sound of Paul Simon's 
"Still Crazy After All These Years" playing like cheap supermarket 
muzak in the back of your head, I would like to present my little 
contrib to this ish here:

The Top 10 Reasons to Look Forward to Depression!

10. Door-to-doorers become afraid of you and your constant insistence 
on waving the gun wildly while they try to talk.

9. You can cut down on cleaning time when you wake up licking the 
kitchen floor every morning.

8. The Donnie and Marie show is funny.

7. You'll catch up on all those Rex Morgan, MD daily comics you've 
never been meaning to read.

6. Wear whatever you want wherever you want and the police always give 
you a free ride home.

5. No matter how low you go, you'll still never be as grumpy as Rex 
Murphy.

	(Canadian inside joke here).

4. It's a great opportunity to join or create yet another end-of-the 
millennium militia group, get killed on national TV and have your 
neighbours finally be the first people on TV to say "Oh, we saw it a 
mile away. S/He was definitely not the quiet type, never kept to 
themselves, partied all the time, never paid the rent, and we never 
stopped to do a dang thing about it 'cause we were looking forward to 
being on a talk show as a well paid guest."

3. Dishes left undone in the sink have been known to become sentient 
and eat all trespassers of their own free will.

2. Trent Reznor becomes meaningful and Marilyn Manson doesn't seem so 
silly.

And the reason #1 with a bullet is...

1. It's like Bruce McCullough of Kids In The Hall says :

	"Lay around naked, watch TV, eat corn-chips, and masturbate."

Thank you and g'nite!

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"Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who 
think."
	-Unknown

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

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