Pizza

Steak Subs dripping with juice

Hand tossed salad

Juicy Imported Tomatoes come on the “Caprese”

Hot, Wide-Open Zucchini Blossoms, deep-fried

Spicy calamaris served

Italian Party Trays with Advanced Notice

Special Delivery After 5 PM, in certain areas (see list)

Sicilian 14-inch Famous, Thick

Square Pizza

For a special treat: meatballs that Melt in Your Mouth

Large Orders Upon Request

Vito’s Special (pepperoni, mush., saus., gr.pepper, onion, freaky conjugal lust)

Shrimp Scampi served on a bed of your choice

Choose between linguine, fettuccini, macaroni, penne, or vibrating ribbed ziti

Soft Gnocchi comes Cacciatore “Hunter Style”

or Fra Diavolo “Devil Style”

Our chef’s specialty is the fragrant white clam

For dessert our grapes’ purple heads are dabbed with mascarpone

Variety of cannolis filled

For snifters, there is a liquor menu

Limoncello, Sambuca too

Gratuity included

Extra toppings are available, speak to your server

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Elizabeth Bastos used to work in corporate and foundation relations, but now she has two children and writes humor and poetry in the Baltimore suburbs. She can be found at goodybastos.blogspot.com.

Take Worlds of Power: Wizards & Warriors, for example. The book is one of many in the 1980s Worlds of Power series, which were novels based on Nintendo games. You might think “wow, a book based on a videogame, how hard was that to write?” SUPER hard! Why, this classic had two writers: F.X. Nine, author of such scintillating books as Blaster Master and Ellen Miles who writes books about puppies!

Ellen Miles: Master of action-packed adventure and cuddly wuddlly animals who wuv hugs!!

Then, suddenly, as Matthew is in his bedroom changing, he finds a knight watching him in the mirror. Oh, so it’s going to be THAT kind of book. If I had known books based on videogames were this salacious, I would have worked that joystick a long time ago. But, alas, the Knight (named Kuros), is not there for a love connection, but a quest connection! Kuros needs Matthew to journey with him (probably because he doesn’t want a minor pressing charges). Kuros tells Matthew that they must rescue Princess Mirdanda and all her beautiful handmaidens, who have been hidden by the evil Makil, who has “threatened that at sundown tonight he will put an end to Princess Miranda.” Why? Who knows. But it’s probably because she’s a girl and can’t pop a whitehead like a real man.

'Kuros's flowing hair was a mess of tangles' (43). Bet that bitch hasn't had a facial in weeks, either.

Just as I am completely enthralled (or completely wasted), the book reveals a GAME HINT, which will help Matthew with his quest! “Don’t fight the bees inside the hollow bee tree. Keep moving down until you find the Wand of Wonder!” With a description of a knight hiding in a boy’s bedroom and items such as “Wand of Wonder,” I’m really beginning to question Nintendo’s true intentions: do they want kids to play more video games or engage in games that are outlawed in over a dozen states?

There are other glorious terms sprinkled through the book, like IronSpire, BrightSword and FuckingStupid. After fighting off a swarm of hornets (cuz that’s what knights do), Kuros and Matthew find a lot of jewelry and dress up like Liberace’s whores. Basically the book is a lot like Choose Your Own Adventure, except there isn’t a 50% chance the main character will die, which is a shame. Sadly, I didn’t realize this until I had finished the book, which is also full of small-town idiosyncrasies such as “it was as hot as a pizza from Sal’s Pizzarea,” or “blacker than the black guy who worked at the bootblack store.”

Applied to the “Literature Has Gone to Shit,” theory, Wizards and Warriors is harmless. It’s for kids back in the day who really connected to their videogame console. And you know what? Better to be connected to that than shackled to a cop after some illegal shenanigans.

I’m not saying books like this kept bored kids out of trouble, I’m just saying I’m feeling really violent right now because someone stole my free Worlds of Power Trading Card. GIVE THAT BACK! KRONOS NEEDS MY HELP TO FIND THE BOOTS OF LAVA WALK.

———-
Eileen really wants that damn trading card.

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I challenge you: grab a magnifying glass and a butterfly, and tell me that what you see doesn’t look exactly like the butterfly in this comic. The crazy eyes. The bad teeth. These sort of things are standard issue in the butterfly world. Caterpillars think they’re going to become beautiful, but in reality, they look better as fuzzy worms. Cuter that way, too.

This comic is actually several years old; I’m just getting around to uploading it now. Pathetic.

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Andrew Kaye (known in some circles as AK) is the creator of Ben & Winslow and other questionable comics, many of which can be found in his deviantART gallery. He’s also the editor-in-chief of this magazine. Duh?

My job is stupid.  Don’t get me wrong, I like pay checks and employment, as I lack other methods for collecting said pay check, but working is just dumb.  To clue you in to the environment of my mental personal hell, I’ve included a scene from this mornings antics:

Method One:

Boss: “Did you print something on the color printer?”

Me: “No, I’m not printing and my work doesn’t involve printing, so you won’t find me doing any.”

Boss: (holds up 20 sheets of paper and waves them around) “Look at this, it says ‘draft’ and they only printed on one side.  Drafts should only be in black and white and printed on both sides.”

Me: “That’s good to know, I’ll send out an email reminder, so that no one will make the mistake again.”

Boss: “Who printed this?”

Me: “I don’t know who printed it.”

Boss: “Don’t worry, I’ll find out who did this.” (Don’t worry?  Was he fucking kidding me?!?!)

Me: “Good, it would have kept me up all night.”

(Boss walks away and I ponder for a moment my ability to hang myself on my badge – too cheaply made to hold my body weight.)

I swear that this is the actual conversation that I had at 6:50am with my boss and I have even cut it down to size not to include his return after he unsuccessfully attempted to track down the rogue printer bandit.  Clearly, going to “Start” opening your “Printers and Faxes” and choosing said printer and then seeing who printed it is well beyond his abilities.  Did I mention that he leads the largest and most advanced technology unit of our agency?  Welcome to the banality of my existence: the soul-raping, blood-coagulating, brain tumor-inducing world of pointless spreadsheets and process flow diagrams.

Since I know it’s all pointless anyways, I’ve just decided to completely get rid of my filter and say the first and craziest thing that comes to mind in any situation and to anyone at work.  For the past few weeks, this has actually proved to be the only source of entertainment within my 10-hour typical work day.

Method Two:

For instance: three weeks back, strange bruising appeared on the back of my hands and knuckles, is the stress and inaneness of work actually causing me to bleed out like a victim of Ebola?  The jury is out on that one, but here is a scene from a co-worker noticing this strange phenomena:

Co-worker: “Oh no, what happened there?” (motions toward my hands)

Me: “Fight club.  Shit, the first rule of fight club is to not talk about fight club!”

(co-worker leaves confused)

I guess he didn’t see Fight Club.

Method Three:

Another co-worker known for repeating the same thing in a monotone voice over and over in as many ways as possible to seem competent and knowledgeable, decided to give me lengthy, unsolicited feedback and included this little nugget of gold:

Co-worker: “I’m sorry, I have a little ADHD and I know I have just told you a ton of information.  It’s really hard for me to stay on track.”

Me: “No actually, I’ve counted you saying the exact same thing five times in five different ways very slowly.  Maybe you don’t have ADHD, maybe you are just a carrier, because I am starting to think I have it now.”

Results and Discussion:

Yeah, I just don’t fucking care anymore.  All jobs are stupid.

Smokey Bear depicted with Hitler mustache

A bus load of Tea Party protesters arrived Saturday at Yellowstone National Park, kicking off a cross-country tour to protest the National Park system for what they consider wasteful spending and misuse of public funds—among other issues.

“Give us back our land” was the mantra of the 1,500-strong crowd at Yellowstone’s front entrance, carrying signs saying “Real Americans R Endangered Species, Too – Wheres R Protection?” and “Illegal Immigrants Out of ‘Jose-mite’!”

Many wore red, white, and blue t-shirts proclaiming “National Parks – America’s Worst Idea.”

“Communistic-mentality thinking has taken over these parks. They were put here by our Founding Fathers to give us more freedom, and now they’re taking it away,” said Patty Rogers, a grandmother and Tea Party protester from Ohio, before breaking into tears. “It’s gotten so bad that my nephew actually told me—he told me the other day—that CCC stands for Czar’s Communist Crusade, and ‘Sequoia’ is Chinese for ‘revolution’ or ‘takeover’ or something like that. And he didn’t learn that at college.”

“Public television had a whole series about the national parks. What does that tell ya?” said Carl Hewson, a restaurant owner and Tea Party protester from Delaware. “There’s the elite liberal mentality right there in a nutshell! Sarah Palin got rid of the parks up there in Alaska. She said, ‘thanks, but no thanks.’”

The protest was organized by Jim Nye, an independent business owner and blogger from San Diego. Nye said his research on the Internet made him see the truth about the national park system.

“Yellowstone and all the other entities in actuality make up a legal country, separate from the United States, with its own charter— I’ve seen copies of it. It has its own source of energy. Old Faithful is in reality one of the cooling towers from underground nuclear power plants. Why do the rangers wear uniforms like the Nazi Brownshirts? Because they’re actually the country’s army.

“The type of government is Socialist-Fascist, and they’re gonna slowly keep adding land until they take over America. This all started at the turn of the last century when the Reds took over Russia. They sent out cells of Bolsheviks over here through Alaska. The Canadian government helped them. Bush was onto this—he tried take land away from the parks, and got all kinds of hay from the Left.”

Emily Wittman, 32, a sales clerk from Utah, said she had been “smelling a rat” about the parks for a long time, and was relieved she to discover she wasn’t the only one.

‘I think the so-called parks are just another excuse the government in the 1960s came up with to spend our money. They say the National Parks were created a hundred years ago but that doesn’t make sense. Why would they need to preserve forests back then when woods was everywhere? Do they think we’re stupid?” she said.

“Does anyone know who really runs the parks anyway?” says Maureen Bledge, 48, a waitress from Utah who came with Wittman. “Some people say it’s the Department of the Interior and other people say it’s the Department of Agriculture. It seems like a way to confuse us.”

“Or else they’re just pulling things out of their a** ,” added Wittman with a snort.

Lilly Petram, an 87-year-old retiree from Little Rock, Arkansas, said she personally didn’t believe that the parks were a separate country. She came here to protest the government waste.

“Do we really need all these waterfalls? I just see our tax dollars going over a cliff,” she says, shaking her head.

The next stop on the tour is the Grand Canyon, where they plan to dump tea over the edge.

“It’s our way of saying God gave us this land and it’s not up to the government to tell us what to do with it,” said Hewson.

————

Sarah Tascone is a freelance journalist, writer and poet from Cleveland who now lives near DC. She is 42 years old and actually made more money from writing while in college at Kent State University than she has in her entire adult life. But she loves it, anyway.

————

This comic is actually based on a true story. This guy Eileen and I knew in college did this exact thing, only instead of a hotdog, it was human being. Sometimes, as a cartoonist, I have to take a little artistic license with my work. Hotdogs are a lot funnier that humans. And their intestines aren’t quite as long. Saves on colored pencils.

————

Andrew Kaye (known in some circles as AK) is the creator of Ben & Winslow and other questionable comics, many of which can be found in his deviantART gallery. He’s also the editor-in-chief of this magazine. Duh?

Many, many are disorganized (or just plain wrong) in their methods of cheese saving. I’ve seen plastic wrap, waxed paper, a brick of bare Cheddar going cracked and dry, first around the single bite-mark that’s been taken out of it. Also rinds of Parmesan being saved for god knows what romantic date night Italian minestrone that’s never going to happen.

What’s in other people’s fridges says a lot about them. For instance, that something is very wrong with them. They are still using plastic wrap to wrap up their black pepper chevre when anyone who is anyone knows better: use cheese monger’s paper, people.

My friends don’t want to talk about it. And I can’t bring it up because it would reveal a lot bout me, that I’m snooping about their kitchens (just to make sure they’re okay! Because I care!). But I wonder: how many heads of fresh organic bib lettuce have to rot to puddles, to later be shamefully cleaned out of the fridge, before they realize how their cold-storage and strangely stocked pantries have to do with their childhoods?

Who are you, taking a quickie bite out of a brick of cheddar in the middle of the night?  Hoarding “envelopes” of water-packed school lunch albacore from Costco and boxes of Amy’s Organic Macaroni Bunnies n’ Cheese? You do not have children. Tell me, is it so hard to say you were not loved? That your heart, like your stomach, went unsatisfied through middle school?

Your mother; tell me about her. About how she stored cultured butter in a crock on the countertop when everyone else’s non-Eastern-European-immigrant mothers kept margarine. I know how that feels. Tell me how her love was as warped as plastic wrap when you pull out plastic wrap to wrap a sandwich and accidentally the plastic wrap touches the side of the still-warm toaster-oven and crumples to nothing, leaving nothing but a strong lingering smell. I will understand. My own mother’s love was like freezer-burned gallon of mint chip ice cream.

I’ll open my fridge to show you; I still have that gallon of ice cream. All these years later I still yearn for it to not be all ice-rimey and freezer-burny, but creamy and delicious.  I’ll pull apart the Western saloon-style pantry doors of my pantry. Do not be shocked, friends. We are alike, you and I. I, too, have prepared an apocalypse-survival kit of prune juice and Martini and Rossi.

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Elizabeth Bastos used to work in corporate and foundation relations, but now she has two children and writes humor and poetry in the Baltimore suburbs. She can be found at goodybastos.blogspot.com.

Stage One: Denial

What?  Fifty people didn’t really respond to the Evite.  It’s not like they all don’t know you live in a two-bedroom apartment. They don’t expect you to cook anything – you have an abortion for a kitchen, because the construction company didn’t allow it to gestate long enough in the womb before ripping it out and throwing it in.  Everybody knows this.  They probably think the invitation was one big joke anyway.  You don’t need to clean the bathroom, it’s not Sunday yet. Go ahead and masturbate into that old t-shirt.  There’s no rush to do laundry.  Everything is fine.

Stage Two: Anger

When your neighbor asks how you are doing, threaten to put his mangy cat in the shared laundry machine; break into the cooking sherry and drink from the bottle; randomly kick children and the elderly; let the whole world know your fury.

Stage Three: Bargaining

There are only two days left.  Redeem that coupon for the free yoga tutorial.  Glance fondly at that bumper sticker in the parking lot that reads, “Jesus Saves.”  Add with magic marker, “By shopping wisely and using coupons.”  Call Ms. Cleo.  Then attempt to update your address on the Evite for another apartment complex down the street.  Clean that bathroom and pray to your reflection in the toilet bowl water for a miracle.

Stage Four: Depression

In the few hours remaining, mask your tears by cutting onions.  After all, the secret ingredient to Grandmother’s string-bean casserole was a touch of rosemary and human suffering. Heat olive oil and a minced garlic clove in pan, cut up asparagus and hearts of palms into small pieces and simmer over medium heat.  Cut yourself a few times and then apply little bandages.  Boil potatoes and put chicken in the oven.  Pour shot of vodka, drink.  Take out frozen dessert to defrost.  Drink more vodka and use this time to reevaluate the emptiness of your life.

Stage Five: Acceptance

Everything is ok.  Turn on the gas stove burners without lighting them so methane can flow freely.  Ensure that all windows are locked and secured.  Welcome the first round of guests in and while they are placing their coats in the second bedroom, pour store-bought salsa into little bowls and place with chips on the coffee table. Inform guests of the “help yourself” policy with the cheap-ass boxes of wine.  Place as many metal objects and tin foil that will fit into the microwave.  Remember to compliment your boss’s wife on her new hairstyle, even if it is tragic.  Turn on microwave before grabbing coat and leaving the apartment.  Throw lit Molotov cocktail inside before shutting the front door.

Congratulations, you have survived.

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Jonathan’s fiction has been published in Velvet Mafia and the anthologies Homewrecker: An Adultery Reader as well as Wilde Stories 2008; he has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and will be graduating from the MFA Program at American University in May 2010.

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Sometimes, a cartoonist just needs to draw a pig.

Replacing your head with a pig really isn’t as cool as you might think. Eating is a huge problem. Sure, you might use the pig’s mouth, but by the time the food gets to your throat, it’s already been digested and converted into waste matter.

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Andrew Kaye (known in some circles as AK) is the creator of Ben & Winslow and other questionable comics, many of which can be found in his deviantART gallery. He’s also the editor-in-chief of this magazine. Duh?

The Doozers must organize.

Fraggles, in their role as exploiter, are directly appropriating the surplus labor of the Doozers for their own consumption. The Doozer’s dead labor is embodied in commodity form in the radish sticks/building material that provides the primary Fraggle means of subsistence. On first blush, this relationship appears most reminiscent of the standard exploitative-capitalist/exploited-worker binary that defines the capitalist mode of production. In fact, the relationship between Fraggles and Doozers more closely resembles one of feudal domination. Recall, Doozers do not receive a wage for their radish sticks and neither the Doozers nor the Fraggles sell any remaining product they don’t need for profit. Therefore, the potential to generate surplus value from the labor power of the Doozers is rendered moot. Doozers are not wage slaves as much as they are serfs. They receive a small plot of land (albeit underground) where they can cultivate their own means of subsistence. Hence, it follows that the Doozers must organize – as the peasant classes have done for centuries – an agrarian revolution. It remains unclear, however, who exactly owns the means of production (the tiny bulldozers and little hard hats) and this information will be crucial in targeting the Fraggle ruling class. Regardless, it can be said with a high level of certainty that the Fraggle mode of production, as natural as it may seem, is crisis-prone and fraught with contradiction. The Fraggles have sown the seeds of their own destruction. The Doozers are the universal class. The Doozers have a world win, they have nothing to lose but their radish sticks.

Second Incarnation: The Advent of Cultural Marxism, The Question of Ideology and Critical Theory or The Fraggle New Left

From An Introduction to Fraggle Rock:

“The Doozers are about six inches tall or knee high to a Fraggle. They live and work – mostly work – inside Fraggle Rock. They build and build and build magnificent bridges, towers, monuments, roads and anything else that they can dream of. They use vegetable protein sticks, processed by mining turnips and radishes in the Gorgs’ Garden as their building material . Fraggles don’t pay much attention to the Doozers, hover they do show a keen interest in their architecture – it tastes delicious! Fortunately the Doozers don’t mind the Fraggles eating their constructions. In fact they appreciate it as it gives them space in which to build better ones.” (emphasis added)

How can we account for the fact that the oppressed Doozers really “don’t mind” having the fruits of their labor appropriated by the Fraggles? First, let’s recall that history is always written by the ruling class. Barring the emergence of a Doozer social historiography, we have to remain content with the account provided by Fraggles. But what if the typical Doozer really doesn’t mind? According to Gramsci, this apparent indifference can be chalked up to “hegemonic dominance.” Clearly the Doozers have internalized the ideology of the Fraggles as their own. One should not be surprised that the Fraggles control the means of symbolic production as well as the means of material production. Convincing the Doozers that they are “free” to work or not (but to starve, Marx reminds us), is centrally important to the maintenance of the Fraggle social order. The legitimacy of the Fraggle apartheid state (we’ll call it as we see it) rests not on the control of the means of violence (though in the event of a Doozer uprising we could expect to see some sort of show of force), but on the shared view by all in society that the social order is natural and right – and those that are in charge of the state apparatus are the most well suited for their position.

This analysis seems pessimistic. Without the awareness of their own oppression – and the subsequent transformation of the Doozer masses from a class in itself to a class for itself – the Doozers will never be free. There is reason to hope. Recent evidence points to the emergence of Doozer counter hegemony. Consider these lines from a popular dozer building song:

The Doozer Building Song (author unknown)[1]

There’s a time, there’s a season,
When the world starts again.
And for no other reason,
Than the dream in our brain.
Sing a tune for the tower,
Sing a song for the stair.
Sing-a-ling for the power,
Tracing shapes in the air.

We will all work together (go!).
We will all work as one (go!).
For today is forever (go!),
And the dream world is one (go!).
And the space that we’re building (go!),

Is a grace in our lives (go!).
From the shapes we are given,
We will build till we die.

(Workin’, workin’, workin’, workin’ …)

While the solidaristic message of the song implies the emergence of a radical Doozer counter hegemony it is also important to note the extent to which the identity of every individual Doozer has been absorbed into the body politic. This artifact from Doozer culture clearly demonstrates how the species-being of the individual Doozer comes to be sacrificed on the alter of mass-production. While the orthodox Marxists have emphasized the dialectal nature of Doozer society in which the subsequent mode of production will be born from “the ashes of the old,” we are not so optimistic. This loss of (Doozer) humanity and subsequent indoctrination into Fraggle culture does not bode well for Doozer liberation. The liberation of the Doozers is not guaranteed by “the laws of history.” Doozers must self-consciously challenge the Fraggle rule and develop a counter hegemonic ethos which emphasizes the following fundamental truth: “from each (Doozer) according to his abilities; to each (Doozer) according to his needs.”

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Ursula Lawrence spent her 20s pursuing a PhD in Sociology only to throw it all away for the chance to meet George Clooney – a goal she achieved while working for the Directors Guild of America. She currently works as the lead  organizer for the Writers Guild of America, East where her job duties include bringing screenwriters together in the hopes that this will make them feel better about themselves or at very least, leave their houses. She attended communist summer camp and predictably, resides in Brooklyn, NY.

[1] http://www.wherearemytoys.com/pandj/legacy/html/lyrics/lyr36.htm