Tonight’s Episode: SEX AND VIOLENCE

With your host, Destiny

I straddled her body.....


###


"God is dead."


####


"Like freshly slaughtered babies."


####


Let the record show..................

It was a record turn-out.  And, a record number of females.

        Amy
        Arkuat
        Arkuat's friend.
        Binky
        Destiny
        Evangelo
        Kris
        MAJ
        Paul
        Splicer
        Sunah
        Tjames
        Tressa
        X (AOL Guy)



                        *                       *



Zeitgeist's walls are scary.  "God is dead," one poster announced.  "Drink
the devil."  There was also one commemorating a friend who'd recently died
in a car accident.  And in a Pigdog tribute to the dead princess, Splicer
circled our table with the digital camera he'd bought for Burning Man.

Kris left the spires of Manhattan for a night of violence at Zeitgeist.
By 8:30, Tjames, Amy, Kris and Destiny lined one side of the table, with
Tressa, Paul, Arkuat and Evangelo on the other side.  Arkuat and Amy were
discussing asparagus's effect on urine.  Arkuat wanted to sit on on other
side of the table.  "Trade me seats," he told Kris.  "I'll give you a
dollar."

"I'll give you a dollar if you don't," Destiny told Kris quickly.

Everyone admired Tjames's shirt.


###


We de-briefed Tjames about Burning Man, where Di's death had been just a
rumor.  Tjames remembered an atmosphere of danger.  The Burning Man effigy
was lit by a running man who was on fire.  In fact, fire was a theme.
Magnesium flames, 100-foot flame throwers, even a flame-thrower bike.

"Even sober, it was like being on hallucinogenics," Splicer said.  A
strange man had offered him an article of his clothing, and asked Splicer
to burn it.  "It's my fear," the man had said.  "Burn my fear."

Tjames remembered another lesson he'd learned.  "There is pizza in the
desert."

"It just takes two hours."

Destiny offered a get-rich-quick scheme that involved sending e-mail from
the desert with a satellite modem.  Tjames pointed out that at Burning
Man, you couldn't charge money for anything.  "Except espresso."

Arkuat burned a dollar bill.  Tjames extinguished it, and put it in his
wallet.

"Tjames doubles his net worth."


###



"Catfight!  Catfight!"

Binky and MAJ had arrived, and MAJ and Amy were entertaining their end of
the table with a mock fight.

Everyone at the other tables was looking at ours.  Tjames and Arkuat
changed tables and pretended they didn't know us.

There was already a ring of empty tables around the Pigdog table.

"Don't ever sit next to Binky and Arkuat," Tjames said.  "It's bad for
your ears."


####


"  'In the desert, you can't remember you name' " Splicer quipped.

"I miss Dude," Tjames said wistfully.  The $20 remote controlled vehicle.
Evangelo bought at Frys had served them well.

        ftp://ftp.pigdog.org/public_html/assets/images/BurningMan97/DUDE/

Thoughts turned to next year.  Next year, there would be robots.  Pigdog
robots.  Pig -- and dog -- robots.  Evangelo had already started the R&D.


###


Evangelo and Amy, MAJ and Binky were discussing sexual accessories.
Bathtubs.  Yogurt.  Hot Wax.  Plastic-sheets.  Crisco.

"Crisco smells bad in the morning," MAJ said.

"I had sex once," Splicer contributed.

Binky sucked Maj's fingers.  We watched.  He continued sucking while he
drank his beer.


###


Special Ed had been impervious to the elements.  Magically, when he left
the festival, his clothes -- and his body -- had showed no signs of wear.
Neither had Splicer's clothes, Tjames pointed out.  Splicer had folded his
clothes upon arrival and left them in a neat pile.

Later in the evening Tjames left the bench to sit cross-legged on the
table.  "I need space."


####


I looked up, and MAJ was fighting Arkuat -- or at least, slapping him.

"I like being slapped," Arkuat said later.

"Can we all slap you?" someone suggested.

####


Splicer showed off his Newton, and when X -- Richard2R@aol.com ("AOL Guy")
-- arrived, Splicer took a nifty pitcher of him looking through a beer
pitcher.  He and Splicer embarked on a round of geek memories for Destiny.

"I had my mom co-sign a bank loan in 1995 so I could upgrade from my PC
Jr,"  Splicer remembered.  " $4500 for a 486/66...."


###


"Baby Oil," MAJ suggested.  "You can sleep, and it doesn't scare you in
the morning.  It even moisturizes."

Splicer was silent.

"It smells fresh,"  MAJ continued.  "Like freshly slaughtered babies."


###


A bearded figure approached.  A long brown beard.  A woman with a long
brown fake beard.  It was Sunah.

"I hate coming to bars alone."

Some suggested photographing each of us wearing the beard with Splicer's
digital camera.

"As long as you're not going around saying 'Smell my beard.' "


###


MAJ was fighting Richard2R.

"The belly is impervious," he was boasting.  MAJ slapped his face.

Incredibly, MAJ's side of the table had become a hotbed of sexual and
catty conversation.  A twenty minute conversation began about slapping.


###


"Are you burning Mentos?"
"Mentos don't burn."
"They melt."
"Do Mentos burn?"
"Ow!"
"Flesh burns." 
"Probably."
"Go to Seattle."
"God damn it!  I got Mentos on my hand!"


We would pay for our hubris against the fresh-making candy.  If only we
had heeded its jingle.

        Nothing gets to you
                staying fresh staying cool......


####


MAJ proposed a cuteness flag which she could use to signal a penalty on
Amy and Evangelo.


###


"You can do so much with CPM.  We've got Visi-Calc!"

Splicer and X were remembering the 80's with Destiny.

"My stepfather ran an Osborne BBS," Splicer remembered, "In 1984."
Splicer remembered his Atari 600 XC with 16 K of Ram.  "If you wrote a
program, it was gone when you turned it off."

Kris had had an Apple II.

"I went through all the levels," X was saying.  "-GS," "-OS,"  Their
conversation resurrected buzzwords for decade-old technology.

"CGA..."
"16 colors instead of four."
"infra-red keyboard."

Then Splicer tried to recall details of the Mad Alchemists board.
"Arkuat!  What was the name of the Mad Alchemist's BBS?"
"The Mad Alpha-Rats?"
"Forget it."
"I just called RatHead, the Hollow, and Beastie...."
"Tjames!"
"The Mad Alchemist WHAT?"
"That was the only decent board in Los Angeles."
"Lunatic Labs?"
"Yes.
Kris brought up Rusty and Edie's.  "Their face hit the deck."


####

MAJ listed her pet names for Binky.  "Smurf," she began.  "Let's see...
'Smudge.' Oh -- Frog..."


###

Arkuat searched for his lost innocence.  He spoke wistfully of someday
getting a tattoo of one of the Tenniel drawings from Alice and Wonderland.

"Or Spock."

MAJ claimed she had a tattoo of Catwoman.  She and Destiny compared Star
Trek novels they'd read. Presciently, Destiny quoted the scene from
"Mirror, Mirror" where Uhura pulls a knife on evil Sulu.

        "You take a lot of chances."
        "So do you, mister."

Howling Wolf sang "Spoonful of Sugar." 

Tjames sat cross-legged on the table.  He impersonated Arkuat.  We all
said he had been switched with the evil Tjames.

"There is no good Tjames."

"Look who's talking."


###


"What do you do?" I asked Tressa.

"I do Paul,"

"  'I do Paul'   " I scribbled.

"You're not going to put that in the report, are you?"

"No," I said.

###


MAJ complained that Amy and Evangelo were flaunting their new romance.

"Write that down," she insisted.  "They're smooching way too much!"

###


"Zan bought me a jolt!" Splicer told the table breathlessly.

"Who's Zan?"

"The bartender!  I think she likes me."

Months of celibacy had crazed Splicer's brain.  "And she spoke to me,
too!"


###

As Amy sipped on her Bloody Mary, Arkuat broke off a conversation with MAJ
to stand on table and shake his booty.

"Boot-EY.  Boot-EY," Splicer shouted.

"We're gonna get so kicked-out-of this place."

Arkuat loosened his belt.

Everyone at the other tables was looking AWAY.


###


Most of the Pigdoggers left to get pizza.  When they got there, Kris
stormed out when they didn't offer him the right kind of meat.  Then he
returned, and DEMANDED pepperoni.  Which they found.  "It was, like,
seven-year-old pepperoni,"  someone pointed out -- but Kris was flushed
with victory.  "I got my slice."


###


Splicer discussed his prospects for getting laid this millenium.  His
friends from the East Coast had called and told him a woman named Gretchen
was coming to San Francisco and needed someone to show her around. 
"  'Don't tell her I said this,' "  they'd said, "but she's easy."

She arrived in the city, and left a message on his answering machine.  But
she wouldn't leave her phone number.  "Isn't that a bitch," someone said
-- "when the easy women are flaky."


###


Chaotic snatches of conversation rose from the table -- beginning with a
progressively drunk-er Arkuat shouting.

"The stars!"

"You have to move your entire body instead of just your hand."

"Let's burn Destiny's notes."


###


Suddenly, Splicer ran to the pay phone...

"Listen!" Splicer said excitedly.  "It's Gretchen!"

He called Arkuat and Destiny to the payphone to listen to the answering
machine message he'd gotten from the easy woman from the East Coast.  "She
STILL won't leave him her number," he complained.  "Isn't that evil?"



###


Later, back at the table, I looked over and saw Arkuat *parallel* to the
ground.  He had hooked his feet under the bench, and was leaning back as
far as he could, shouting loudly.


###


"I would love to get into acting," Amy told Richard.  He reached into his
backpack....


###


"Give me a quarter," Splicer shouted frantically.  He had a plan to change
the message on his answering machine, leaving specific instructions for
the easy woman from the east coast to LEAVE A PHONE NUMBER.  "Give me a
quarter!" he shouted excitedly.

"If it'll make you go away," someone said.  Instantly, several hands were
offering Splicer quarters


###


Arkuat poured himself more beer.

"Haven't we cut him off yet?" someone whispered.


###


Arkuat wanted Splicer to eat the cold bean he'd found left-over from one
of the cocktails.  "It's really good," he told Splicer.  "Eat the bean."

"No," Splicer said.

"C'monnn," Arkuat said drunkenly.  "It's really good!"

"No," said Splicer.

"Eat the bean!"

"I'll take it," I lied.

Arkuat handed me the bean.

I palmed it, then pretended to have eaten it.


###

When everyone had returned from the pizza place, a cluster stood around
the end of the table. Tjames tapped Arkuat's chest, and accidentally hit
him.  Arkuat reactively launched a series of drunken karate kicks, hitting
Tjames's head and stomach, and Splicer's balls.  There was confused,
frightened laughter.

"What the fuck was that?"

"Let's sit down," Evangelo suggested brightly.

Binky talked to Splicer, suggesting that he rub his feet to stimulate the
nerves which go from the feet through the body, saying it has the effect
of massaging your internal genital organs.

"That sounds like a good idea," Splicer said.  "Even if you haven't been
kicked."  He hinted he would be spending the next three days alone in his
apartment rubbing his feet.

Everyone returned to the table and attempted to assimilate what had
happened.  Splicer counseled Arkuat.  "You're responsible for your own
actions"

Tjames apologized for the hit. 

"I accept your apology," Arkuat said, "but you must eat the green bean."

"No," said Tjames.

"C'MON," insisted Arkuat, "Eat the Bean!"

"EAT THE BEAN!  EAT THE BEAN!" Splicer chanted.

"EAT THE BEAN!  EAT THE BEAN!" Destiny joined in.

"No," said Tjames.

I turned away as the conversation continued.  It ended with Tjames
throwing the bean at the wall.  "You don't play by my rules!" Arkuat
shouted.  "You don't play by rules!"

Splicer intervened; the shouting escalated.  "Are you fucking serious?"
Splicer was saying.  Arkuat shouted back.  Oh my god, I thought.  This is
real.  They're shouting at each other over a green bean.

"Shut the fuck up," someone at another table heckled.  The assistant
bartended came over.  "You settle down or you can all leave."

Arkuat stormed off in a huff.

Splicer was surprised at how vehement everything had gotten.  "It's the
Jolt talking," I comforted.

"I guess that Jolt Cola brings out the worst of me," Splicer conceded.

"Can someone bring some downers to the next event?" MAJ suggested. 

A drunken Arkuat stalked back to the table. 

"If you two want a ride," he told Binky and MAJ, "we're out of here right
now."

The next thing I remember is seeing Tjames talking to assistant bartender.
It was a long conversation.  Splicer came up to him later.  "Are they
throwing Arkuat out on my behalf?"

"Yes."

"I feel pretty shitty about Arkuat getting thrown out."

"He gets all passive aggressive..."

X consoled Splicer.  It was a long, circular speech that centered around
the theme, "It's not your fault, man."  Something like this:

"It's not your fault, man.  I love you dude -- it's not your fault.  It's
like, it's not your fault, man..."

"I discovered that AOL guy's don't shut up," Tjames said after five
minutes.


####


Distractedly, Binky played with his Pringles.  "Don't mess with MAJ," he
said.  "Because she's got a CHIP on her shoulder."

"You've got Pringles in your beard."

He replaced the lid on the empty can.  "Here's what I think of your
Pringles," he shouted, hurling them into the wall.  It exploded in a
frenzy of Pringle crumbs.

Evil was in the air.

###

We remained in the bar, trying half-heartedly to continue drinking.  "God
is dead," the poster glared.  "Drink the devil."

As Tjames left to buy cigarettes, Evangelo made a toast.

"To absent friends." 

Clink.

####

We tried do salvage what was left of the mood, even after we went our
separate ways.  When Tjames and I got to my car, I showed him the
postcards from Disneyland in the 1970s.  The last thing he said as I
dropped him off was, "I'm looking forward to your report tomorrow."

When I got home, I stepped on my cat's tail.  It hissed; my girlfriend
woke up.

I straddled her body. 

"Do you want to sleep," I asked, "or wake up and chat and cuddle?"

"Sleep," she said.


God is dead.