       ___________ __              _______                         
       \__    ___/|  |__   ____    \      \   ____  ____           
         |    |   |  |  \_/ __ \   /   |   \_/ __ \/  _ \   ______ 
         |    |   |   Y  \  ___/  /    |    \  ___(  <_> ) /_____/ 
         |____|   |___|  /\___  > \____|__  /\___  >____/
                       \/     \/          \/     \/
       _________                 __        __
       \_   ___ \  ____   _____ |__| _____/  |_  ___________  ____  
       /    \  \/ /  _ \ /     \|  |/    \   __\/ __ \_  __ \/    \ 
       \     \___(  <_> )  Y Y  \  |   |  \  | \  ___/|  | \/   |  \
        \______  /\____/|__|_|  /__|___|  /__|  \___  >__|  |___|  /
               \/             \/        \/          \/           \/ 
.......... ......... ........ ....... ...... ..... .... ... .. .  .   .    .
   .   .  . . .. ... .... ..... ...... ....... ........ ......... ..........

    t h e  n e o - c o m i n t e r n   e l e c t r o n i c  m a g z i n e
                 I n s t a l l m e n t    N u m b e r  1 3 5

                         We Are the New International
                         December 31st, 2000
                         Editor: BMC

                                             Writers:
                                                  BMC


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 ;P                      Featured in this installment                      .b
 $                                                                          $
 $                           Measuring Laura - BMC                          $
 `q                                                                        p'
   `nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn'

                               EDITOR'S NOTE

I'm going to skip my usual this-time-of-year cynicism and just say this:

So so so so so so so so s os os so sos osss so so so so so sop so so so so

This makes me wonder how they celebrated the New Year in 2000bce.  Did they
go out to the loudest place with the smokiest air and the drunkest and most-
likely-sex-havingest people?  It's entirely possible.

But did they know it was New Year's time at all?

At all?

Think about that, because it's deep.

Real deep.

`Cause it's New Year's Eve.  This is the greatest night ever.  It's different
from any other, and if you ask me why I will not be able to respond because
it is not an intellectualization but a feelin.  This is when it all
happened.  This is when time started.  The first day that the world started
was the first New Year.  Ok, you caught me... I'm bullshitting.  I have no
idea.

No idea at all.

At all...

(ed note - I'm crying)


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 ;P                             MEASURING LAURA                            .b
 `q                                 by BMC                                 p'
   `nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn'

Everybody wants to be somebody they're not, no matter what position they
hold in life.  From flamboyant street goblins, who fancy themselves poets,
to company presidents, who look back on their high school rock and roll
days, everybody dreams of something more.  As human beings, we have been
conditioned to want it all, but we can never have it all because that is
just not the way the world works.  Nothing ever turns out okay, no matter
how hopeful you are and no matter how favourable the conditions seem.
Nobody is ever completely happy and nobody ever gets what they want.

I mean, imagine for a minute that you have stumbled into the perfect life.
You don't have any worries, you love your work, you are in the perfect
relationship, your bed is comfortable, and you get to sleep for nine hours
every night.  Wow, it seems like you would really like to live in this life,
but guess what?  I met a person who DID live this life, and you know what
they told me?  They said that life wasn't enough of a challenge and that
they were in a constant state of boredom!  In response, I punched her in
the stomach, and then when she doubled over, I kneed her in the face.  Yeah.
Life wasn't so easy anymore, was it?  But wouldn't you know it, she still
wasn't content.

To paraphrase what my homie Johnny Cocaine said in his classic ghetto
anthem, "Dove Sick," ain't nobody satisfied in the 2-triple-0.  It's all
true.  We all have the same deep-seeded desire.  To be something else.

Laura wanted to be something else, even though she was living a life that
many children dream of.  She was a Cirque de Soleil performer, and at
acrobatics and contortion she was the best.  She made lots of money, got to
travel, and had thousands of fans worldwide.  When the announcer said her
name, the fans would cheer, and when she would squeeze herself into an orange
crate, they would go wild with adulation.  There was only one thing that
Laura didn't have - Love - but she didn't want Love, so that was ok.

Ahh ahh ahh!  But, there WAS something else she did want and that was to be a
Las Vegas cigarette girl from the 1920's.  Every time she would enter a
conversation with someone, she would find a way to bring it up.  Even if a
complete stranger would come up to her and say something unrelated like,
"What would you like to be?" she would respond, "A Las Vegas cigarette girl
from the 1920's!"  Sometimes she would go for days saying nothing but that.

She went to see the seamster (the male equivalent of a seamstress, which is
the female equivalent of a tailor) who was in charge of designing her Cirque
de Soleil costumes.  He said, "So what can I do for you today?" to which she
replied, "If you can't help me become a Las Vegas cigarette girl from the
1920's, then perhaps you could help me design a new costume!"  He measured
her for her new outfit until Laura had to leave for her evening show.

The tailor wanted to be something else too.  He wanted to be Laura.  He had
loved her since time immemorial, and every time she spoke, her voice sank
deeper into him.  After all, she was beautiful, and above that she was
wonderfully kind and compassionate.  She cared about little things.  She
didn't litter.  She never used foul language.  She loved animals.  She
kissed inanimate objects that she felt sorry for.  "If only I were one of
those inanimate objects," thought Roy (that was the seamster's name).  Laura
was a good person- no, she was amazing.  She had legions of fans, and though
she was only eighteen she had experienced more than... more than Roy had.
He was thirty years old and had spent his entire life up to this point as a
seamster.  He knew there was nothing Laura could possibly see in him, so he
gave up on it, deciding instead to gaze on her at every opportunity,
leaching drops of beauty from her reflection to lighten his own soul.  But
he went even further than that.

When Laura would come in to design her tight costumes with laces and frills
and ruffles attached to them, Roy would draft the diagram, make
measurements, select the material, and finally cut the pieces of fabric for
the two outfits.  Yes, outfits (plural).  When Roy created a costume for
Laura he would also make a second suit that was not Laura sized but, in
fact, Roy sized.  He was a loser (n. one who loses).  On top of all of this,
he had to live in an abandoned warehouse because he didn't have a real job.
The only thing he did for a living was seamster, and Laura was his only
customer.  He liked it that way, though.  His whole life was dedicated to
serving her, and he couldn't have asked for anything more than that.  Oh
wait, he could ask for more than that.  He wanted Laura to love him, but he
knew it would never b real.

The closest he could come to being with Laura was to watch her perform her
spectacular circus act.  He needed to get closer though, and he secretly
accomplished this, although you wouldn't have been able to tell even if you
were sitting right next to him.  The truth is, under his regular clothes he
wore a costume identical to Laura's, and as she performed, he would touch a
tiny piece of the fabric and be transported to another state of
consciousness where it was not the cloth but Laura who was wrapped around
his naked body.

I bet you think the rest of this story is going to be really perverted, but
it's actually not.  It's just a story about a bunch of stuff that happened,
and one of the characters in the story happens to be a little bit weird.
Well I guess both of the characters are weird.  Now that I think of it, all
of the characters in this story are going to be strange, even the ones I
haven't introduced yet.  The ghost of Millie, for instance, but you knew
about that already.

Anyway, the next day Laura came to visit her seamster again, and when Roy
saw her he smiled and asked, "So how are you today?"  Laura replied, "Very
very good, actually.  I just came up with a plan that will let me go back to
1920 so I can achieve my goal of being a 1920's cigarette girl!"  Roy was
very happy for her, and hoped she would take her seamster with her.  "So how
did you do it?" he asked.

"Well I haven't DONE it yet, but I do have a plan in mind," answered Laura.
"You see, I was down at the book store today, and I found this book, and I
think it talks about time travel."  She held up the paperback so Roy could
see the amazing mechanical invention illustrated on the cover.  "Ahh, The
Time Machine by H.G. Wells," said Roy.  He had heard of the book before.
"Uhh, yes..." said Laura, "...anyway, I figure that if I read this book it
will teach me how to build a time machine and then I can go back in time to
the 1920's and then I can move to Las Vegas and I am sure they will hire me
as a cigarette girl because I have been spending all of my spare time
practicing for the last two years!"  Laura did a few fancy 1920's cigarette
girl moves and Roy was impressed.

"Wow, that's great!" exclaimed Roy, but he became sad because once Laura
left, his life would be completely worthless.  "So when are you going to
read it?" he asked.  "Oh, I don't know," she sighed, "I haven't even learned
how to read yet, so I have to send a letter away to correspondence school
and then they can teach me how to read."  Roy couldn't figure out how they
would teach someone to read through correspondence, but he assumed that
there was a way.  "So did you send away for information yet?" he asked.
"No," responded Laura, "but I wrote the letter this afternoon, and I was
wondering if you could mail it for me."  She handed the envelope to Roy and
he looked it over.  There were no real words on it, just a bunch of
meaningless scribbles.  He didn't want to hurt her feelings by telling her
this, so instead he came up with a grand lie.

"I'll tell you what," said Roy, "how about if I teach you how to read and
then you won't have to wait to get a response from the correspondence
school."  Laura smiled.  "Ok," she said, "when should we start?"  Roy
replied, "How about tonight at the abandoned warehouse at 136 Lewis
Avenue?"  "Sounds great to me," she agreed.

When Laura got outside of the building she began to laugh.  She knew that
the letter was all scribbles and she knew that when Roy saw that he would
feel sorry for her and offer to teach her how to read.  What she didn't
know, however, was that he was an obsessed fan and that when she met him at
the abandoned warehouse that night she was going to be in for a terrifying
surprise.

When Laura got outside of the building, Roy started laughing.  He knew that
the only reason Laura wanted to learn how to read was so that she could
build a time machine and leave him in the future forever, so he devised an
evil plan.  It was dishonest, it was wrong by any code of ethics, and it was
unprofessional as a seamster, but he knew what must be done in order to keep
Laura in his life forever.

Eight o'clock rolled around, and Laura came up to Roy's front door.  Just as
she was about to knock, the door knocker turned into the face of Millie in a
bizarre act of Charles Dickens plagiarism.  "I am the ghost of Millie the
giraffe," howled the ghost, "and I am here to warn you that only hell awaits
you if you go through this door tonight."  "Hey, look.  It's a cute giraffe
head," said Laura.  "Hi, giraffe head."  Millie's presence wasn't as
frightening as a ghost's presence should be, so she made herself sound as
spooky as she possibly could.  She even added a huge echo this time.
"Whoooooo!  Beware, Laura the performer, for your end is near if you cross
this threshold.  You will face spirits, you will battle the souls of the
damned, you will be challenged by death himself!"  Laura shrugged and said,
"Well I don't believe in ghosts, really."

Millie got really mad and decided that this girl's life wasn't really worth
saving for all of the annoyance it was causing her.  She disappeared, and
Laura was left by herself, knocking at the door, just knocking at that
door... they say you can still hear her knocking to this day...

...but they are wrong.  The knocking actually stopped right away, and Roy
opened the door about five seconds after that.  They said hello to each
other, and Laura went inside.  They sat down on a couple of crates that Roy
used for chairs, and Roy pulled up a big crate to use as a table.  Laura
looked around.  There were nothing but crates in the building.  Oh, and the
walls were plastered with pictures of her, but that was a cliche so she
didn't pay much attention to it.  She hated cliches.  They sat in the dimly
lit concrete-floored room for awhile, and Laura asked, "So when are we going
to get to work?"  Roy remained silent.  If he avoided the question, he might
not have to teach her how to read and she might not build the time machine.
This was Plan A of his scheme.  She asked again and this time she meant it,
so Roy had to answer.  The plan had failed.

Now it was time to move to Plan B.  Roy had thought this one through very
carefully, and it was sure to work.  When he taught Laura how to read, he
would intentionally mix up all the words.  He would say that the word "here"
was pronounced "there," that "seven" was pronounced "eight" and that "up"
was actually "down."  He had made up a list of replacement words for the
entire English language, and as long as he could remember them he would be
fine.  He got a book out of one of his crates.  "Ok, let's go over this
one," he said.  "Ok, this word is 'the.'  This word is 'hi.'  This word is
'box.'  This word is 'good.'  This word is 'the.'"

"Hey!" said Laura, "You said THAT word was 'the!'"  He was caught in his
lie.  What would he do now?  Try to come up with some clever excuse, or risk
everything by telling that he loved her.  He weighed the pros and cons as
well as he could.  Being clever was not Roy's forte.  He tried to think of
an excuse he could use if he did choose to attempt to cover his lies up with
more lies.  He could say that there are sixteen different ways to spell
'the' in the English language.  He could say that it was just a mistake, and
that he meant to say 'train.'  Ahh, or he could do something outrageous.  He
could pretend to be having a stroke or something, and then he would have an
excuse for not being able to make sense out of any of those words.  Even if
she called an ambulance they wouldn't take him to the hospital, because they
lived in a place where there was no health care so they just let the poor
people die.   The problem with that, though, was that one of the paramedics
might teach Laura to read while Roy was feigning unconsciousness!  OK, well
he could tell her that he didn't actually know how to read.  No, that
wouldn't work either, because she already knew he could read the measuring
tape in order to design her outfits.

Roy thought about it some more.  "What else could I do?" he wondered.  "I
could tell her that I love her.  I could tell her that I didn't want her to
leave, so I made up a big plan to keep her near me forever.  She might think
that is sweet.  She might tell me that she loves me too.  But oh, what if
that doesn't happen?  I am extremely unstable, so I might end up going
insane and murdering her or maybe I would break her legs and make her write
stories for me like in that movie.  No, that wouldn't be very good either.
I love her the way she is, and I could never do anything to change her.  I
don't want to see her turn into something else because of my negative
influence.  I want her to be herself.  I want her to be free and do what she
wants.  On the other hand, however, she wants to leave this time and leave
me alone here, and I can't allow that to happen either.  Oh the choices are
so difficult.  I don't know what to do.  I want her to be free, and I want
her to choose to stay with me.  Isn't there any other way?  Isn't there any
other way that -Roy- she would... what the hell?  -Roy this is Millie-  What
is going on?  -I am a ghost and my consciousness is inside of your mind-  I
don't believe in ghosts!  -you will Roy-  I will what?  Believe in ghosts?
-tonight you will be challenged by an army of spirits-  an army of spirits,
huh?  -stop repeating everything I say-  Am I repeating everything you say?
I didn't realize... -Enough!  If you meet the challenge you will survive
with everything but your testicles.  If you fail, you will see Laura die
before you-  Ok, this is fucked up."

Roy had been silent for about ten minutes at this point, and Laura was
becoming very frightened.  She had tried to talk to him, but he was in a
nearly comatose state.  She had even forgotten about the way he tried to
trick her into learning the wrong way to read books.  Suddenly Roy snapped
out of it.  "Oh my goodness," he said (he always tried to avoid foul
language in front of her or he would have said "Oh my fuck"), "We've got to
get out of here."  Roy said this with false calmness, but also with
seriousness and determination.  He stood up quickly, and a vision of a
giraffe appeared in front of him.  "Are you... Millie?" he asked,
unbelieving.  "Yes!" howled the ghost-giraffe, "And there is no way to
escape what I have said shall be reality."  Roy looked down at his testicles
and shuddered.  He grabbed Laura's arm and ran to the door, but it was
locked.  He realized that Millie was speaking the truth.  There had to be
some way around the testicle thing, though.

Roy and Laura turned around.  Before them stood three ghosts who can only be
described as scary looking.  They were pale translucent white, and their
forms were similar to flames.  Incandescent?  Yes, they were that, too.  Roy
turned out the lights for a second.  Yep, he could still see them (so could
Laura).  He turned the lights back on.

One of the ghosts lunged at Roy, but he did a quick side-step and punched
the ghost in the stomach.  The ghost got winded and collapsed on the floor.
The second ghost rushed in as well, but Roy was waiting and met his
spiritual foe with a kick in the sack.  That ghost was out.  The third ghost
stood there waiting for Roy to make the first move.  Roy stepped in and
attempted to give the ghost a hip-toss, but the ghost surprised Roy by
engulfing him like a cloud of steam.  Roy's sinuses suddenly became very
clear.  He inhaled the ghost entirely, and his lungs filtered most of the
ghost out of the air he breathed.  He kept breathing the ghost in and out
until it was really small, and then he put it in a matchbox and put the
matchbox into his shirt pocket.

"Well that was pretty easy, wasn't it?" Roy said just as a fourth ghost
kicked him in the back of the head.  Laura stepped toward the ghost and
sprinkled some salt on it.  It shriveled up and died.

Stop for a second.  I figure that ghosts would be way too scary if they were
impossible to defeat, so just to let you know, I'm going to make all of
these ghosts pretty easy to beat.  That being said, I suppose you can just
skip over the next couple of pages, because they are all going to be about
stupid ghost fights and if you don't like ghost fights it is a waste of
time.  I mean, the ghost fights aren't even that important to the story or
anything, but I think it will be fun to write them so I think you're going
to have to humour me or something.

Or something.  You could get mad and stop reading the whole thing.  You
could even hate me for the rest of your life.  Wow, it seems like the
minuses are totally outweighing the plusses.  Writing a couple more pages of
ghost fights would probably be really stupid of me.  Anyway, in traditional
BMC emotion-over-reason thought processing pattern, I am going to indulge.
Indulge.  Yum.  I want a sandwich.

Laura wanted a sandwich too.  A ghost sandwich, that is.  She took two
pieces of bread from her knapsack and spread a ghost on it like jelly.
Yum.  A ghost sandwich would prove to be a delicacy in Europe in the 22nd
century.

In an amazing use of literary techniques such as foreshadowing and dramatic
irony, BMC made Roy do something very impressive.  A ghost appeared in front
of him (no big surprise at this point), and Roy pulled out a pair of
scissors and some thread from his seamster emergency case.  He laid the
ghost out, cut him up into pieces, and proceeded to sew them together.
"What is that?" asked Laura.  "Why it is a dress for you to wear," replied
Roy.  "But," said Laura, "the material is transparent!"  Roy smiled and
winked at you, who were suddenly there as well.

Laura put the dress on and they continued to battle the ghosts.  Laura asked
one of the ghosts if it would like to play a game of Uno with her.  When the
ghost admitted that it actually knew the rules of the game, Laura told it
that it was a loser and thence it lost the battle against her.

As Roy bowed his head in shame because he also knew the rules of Uno, a
ghost flew up his ass without his awareness.  "I've got gas pains," said
Roy.  "No you don't," replied Laura, "you just have a ghost up your ass."
"Yes and no, Laura" retaliated Roy, "you see, I believe I've just had my
tank filled with ethereal."  The ghost groaned at that joke which obviously
stunk.

NOTE- These ghost fights keep getting more and more awesome.

"So what's it like having a ghost up your ass anyway?" asked Laura.  "Well,"
said Roy, "you know what it's like to have a dry coarse broom stuck up your
ass?"  "No!" replied Laura with shock.  "Oh," said Roy, and he slumped his
shoulders a bit as his face turned red with shame and embarrassment.

If you haven't gotten the point yet, they fought many ghosts that night.
They were in deadly combat with the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and
future, they battled casper and the headless horseman, umm... the holy
spirit was there... they fought with Io the cloud, but she wasn't really
a ghost so maybe they didn't.  I can't think of any more ghosts, but if I
could then they would have fought with them too.  In fact, they did fight
with a few ghosts that I can't remember right now, and just because I can't
think of them doesn't mean that they didn't happen.  They were really scary
too and somewhat difficult for Laura and Roy to defeat.  Also, in that
process Roy ended up losing his testicles.  It wasn't that bad actually.  He
couldn't tell the difference.  It was like he was born without them or
something for all of the trouble it caused him.  And that's the story of how
they defeated the ghosts.

Oh wait, there were a few more things that happened in that part that I
forgot about.  First of all, Roy told Laura that he was in love with her, and
guess what?  She said she loved him too!  Apparently, the only reason she
was in Cirque de Soleil was so that she could keep getting costumes made by
Roy.  The art of seamstering fascinated her more than anything else.  They
ended up going back to her circus house where she had pictures of Roy hard
at work.  They were all over her walls.

What a weird development for Roy, the thought that he could actually be an
equal to this amazing girl.  Apparently they liked some of the same kinds of
music, too, and they were both vegetarians!  Roy never told her about the
duplicate costumes that he made for himself, but Laura had her suspicions.
She thought it was cute though, and she was actually flattered more than
anything.

Oh, another thing that happened during all of those ghost battles was that
Roy taught Laura how to read.  She was a fast learner and he was a good
teacher, so it only took about 10 minutes or so.  During the next week, they
read The Time Machine together (Roy was going to travel back to 1920 with
her now), and guess what?  They found out that you can't build a time
machine, it's just a story.

Now that Laura was with Roy, she realized that she didn't need to have
everything she wanted in order to be (mostly) happy, but she still wanted to
be a cigarette girl, so Roy made a very pretty cigarette girl costume for
her.  They went to Las Vegas in the year 2000 where she auditioned at every
casino around to be a cigarette girl.

They didn't have cigarette girls in the year 2000, but they did have an
underground Russian roulette ring.  They played Russian roulette for a few
weeks, and after winning several times, they were very very wealthy and
bought their own casino.  They converted it into a nostalgia casino with a
1920's theme, and guess who got to be a cigarette girl there?  Laura!  After
awhile she forgot that it was actually the year 2000 and all of her dreams
came true.  Roy's dreams came true, too.  He got to travel the world to go
to casino-owner conventions, and he also got to try skydiving one time!

The moral of the story is that everything always works out ok, even if it
doesn't seem like it is going to be at the time.  Get it?  The word "time"
had a double meaning.  That was supposed to be funny.   The End.
  
                                               
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    ___________________________________________________         
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 Copyright 2000 by The Neo-Comintern                           #135-12/31/00

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