
.ili.   Devil Shat Seven   .ili. 
--------------------------------

This is Devil Shat Seven released on 08/14/97. Devil Shat is published by disobey and is protected under all copyright laws. All of the issues are archived at the Disobey website: http://www.disobey.com

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.ili. Contents .ili.
-------------------
Shocking News (by Morbus)
JUST DO IT: Make Smoking Illegal (by Morbus)
THE DEVIL'S DUMP (by various)

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.ili. Shocking News .ili.
--------------------------- by Morbus

Very rarely does news surprise me. But when I walked around a couple of days ago with a friend, nothing shocked me more than what I had seen. It wasn't Steve Jobs. Hell, I knew that he was giving the MacWorld Expo keynote a while ago. What shocked me was to find that on a huge bank of monitors behind him was a satellite image of Bill Gates.

My heart leapt in it's grave.

Okay... there was my dramatic intro. Now, let's jump into the fray. In case you haven't heard of it, Microsoft and Bill Gates invested $150 million dollars in non-voting stock into Apple. When this announcement was given, most of the 6000 people assembled at the Expo let out gasps, booed, or otherwise had a noticeable reaction. Some called it "brilliant", some called it "treason" and some hung their head in shame. I would have been one of those people who just stood around in shock.

My initial reaction was one of anger. What the hell? My Macintosh? My beloved Mac is now cooperating with the enemy? In my house, I have four computers, three of them are PC. I use my Mac far more than I use my PCs. They are both equally good to me, and I use each of them for their respective purpose. But the PC was a machine, the Macintosh was a culture. The PC is something to work on, the Macintosh is something to take pride in. The Macintosh was more of a "best buddy" than the PC. They are different machines with different images.

And now my buddy is being eaten by the machine.

I guess the anger lasted about three days before I finally became smart. The payoff was brilliant for both parties, and not as dramatic and dangerous as I had thought. Apple has $150 million to play with now and continued Microsoft support for their Office products. Microsoft is protected from the anti-trust suit and has Macintosh support for Internet Explorer. And both companies have agreed to set some standard for the Java Virtual Machine.

But there's still that nagging feeling that Apple has sold out. Do I like it? No. Do I like it? Yes. I am at a crossroads in which I really won't see an answer until a year from now. Apple isn't going to die now... yet they won't be the same Apple. Microsoft isn't going to make any sort of money off this deal... yet with the anti-trust suit gone they don't really need to worry about that.

The only humor I could find in all of this was the transcript of the Expo I got off the Apple website. Verbatim, it indicated when people clapped and when people laughed. Strangely, it didn't show when people booed, gasped, or hung their heads in shock. 

And Mac users have to wonder (to quote a news source): "Who will be our new Satan?" Will it be Steve Jobs himself?

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.ili. JUST DO IT: Make Smoking Illegal .ili.
----------------------------------------------------- by Morbus

Maybe we should pledge allegiance to smoking. It's one of the only things that most Americans do every day. It's one of the only things that Americans do more than ONCE every day. And according to commercials, it's one of the only things that Americans do that can get you beautiful women AND everlasting sex.

Now, enact a modern day Prohibition on smoking. Puffin' a butt is now illegal blacklung, and you can't do anything about it.

Well... besides smoking illegally and we all know that's going to happen. And think about the drug business. Maybe something good could come out of trafficking cigarettes. With so many people addicted to smoking, maybe we'll see a downsizing in the sales of pot, cocaine, and all those other drugs. If millions of people are willing to trade you 20 bucks for a pack of cigarettes, why deal in pot? Just hook up with your buddy at the now underground Phillip Morris (you think they're just gonna disappear?) and become a millionaire. Everybody's doin it.

But what about our environment? Making the world a cleaner place because of non-smoking probably won't mean anything. We'll always have some added pollution coming from some new "revelation". What about the other kind of environment though? The one we interact in? The one we move around in? 

People won't be killing for shoes anymore (damn those swooshtikas) but rather for butts. Just traded your son away for a case of Marbs? Well, guess what? You're being held up by your next door neighbor who has a pissed off look in his eye, and a REALLY shaky hand. Sure, he might miss with that gun but you can see people lining up in the distance.

So... what of all the money and jobs we would be losing because of the loss of cigarettes? Well, with all those people who got laid off, we can put them on border patrol to stop people trafficking from Canada and Mexico. And while we're at it, we might as well put a tax on crossing the border... that way, we can get back some more money for all we're losing in cig sales.

But this argument has been largely bad-sided. What would be the good of banning cigarettes? Well, we wouldn't waste money making those stupid no smoking signs for all the restaurants... there would be less debris on the street, and more coffee cans would go to better use than ash trays. And with the uselessness of ashtrays becoming apparent, we could convert all the factories to coaster makers (you can never have enough coasters). What about lighters? Well, hmm... all of the ones that haven't been sold can be given out at Verve Pipe or Bush concerts. 

Should we ban smoking? I don't think that it will ever happen. I can only envision the legal areas to publicly smoke grow smaller and smaller. I can only envision nicotine alternatives becoming more widespread (Have you seen that Nicorette commercial? The one where they were going to call their kid "Nick" because Nicorette helped them stop smoking?). Perhaps more people will quit smoking because of the renewed "health" fad, but more kids will smoke because of the continuing "rebel" fad. We'll probably stay even for a rather long time. 

Oh well.

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.ili. THE DEVIL'S DUMP .ili. 
------------------------------------ by various

---WIRED August 1997 (advertisement, first couple of pages) by Morbus

Alright, I saw this ad, and all I could say was "Hahaha, Screw You!". The ad shows a in-your-face of Tiger Woods with the caption: "Stuff Tiger Doesn't Need" and then has superimposed randomly the words "Cosmetic Surgery",  "His Own Talk Show", and "Tattoos". What that has to do with the ad I have no clue. They are pitching the "Tiger Woods Tudor Chronograph" which is another word for "Really Expensive Watch". But the clincher is another tagline: "IT'S TIME TO BE YOURSELF". What the hell? Be myself? You're showing me a huge picture of Tiger Woods (the be-like-me sports celebrity of 1997) and telling me to be myself? By wearing a watch? Who's gonna notice a watch? This is a pure example of "BE LIKE ME BUT BE YOURSELF"... a pathetic attempt to sell more trinkets.

---WIRED August 1997 (rants & raves, page 30, third column, first complete letter) by Morbus

Wow, WIRED earns two "dammit"s this issue. The "dammit" in question is a letter regarding the June cover of WIRED. The cover was of the Apple logo duped up so that represented Jesus on his cross. A crown of thorns and drops of blood were other noticeable features. The letter is reprinted below (without permission) in full:

"The June cover crosses the line of shock for shock's sake while adding nothing to the magazine. And it offended a good many people in the bargain. Your sentiments concerning Apple could have been expressed without denigrating or trivializing a symbol that many people feel strongly about."  ---Martin D. Kilmer (mdkilmer@pacinfo.com)

Why is this a "dammit"? 'Cause someone actually wrote in to complain about it. Yes, I suppose it could be degrading the holy Jesus and so forth, but trivializing it? If Mr. Kilmer wrote a letter for every instance where we see Jesus trivialized (or his life) then he would not have time to pay off his internet payment to write the above email. He wouldn't have a job. There are just too many instances in which he would have a problem.

Is he justified in doing it? Yup. Was it the right place to do it? Probably not. In a magazine like WIRED, which has the reputation of covering under culture in our world and the digital world, something like that should be expected. I thought it was an incredibly good cover. Did I understand what it was implying? Yup. Did I read into it? Sure. The relations between what Apple is and what Jesus represents were apparent. Both died (or would have) after making a radical change to the environment around then, and both died (or would have) before their time. The picture, as the saying goes, spoke a thousand words.
 
---YAHOO! PICK OF THE WEEK August 1997 by Morbus

A minor "dammit" here.  Most everyone knows that Burroughs died earlier this month. William Burroughs, an icon of our culture (even as he tore it apart), wrote a number of books (amongst other things) and was the last surviving member of the Shakespeare Squad.. Well... in "tribute" of his passing, Yahoo! delivered their descriptions in the style of other famous authors. What follows is their attempt at J.D. Salinger. Although it was a good mockery of "The Catcher in the Rye", it remains just that: a mockery. Even if my latest book DID suck, I still would be angry at the following:

            Well, if you really want to read this week's selection of picks, go
            ahead.  I mean, I actually enjoy a good web site, if it's intelligent
            and all.  Like A Gallery of Regrettable Food can be kind of
            entertaining, if you buy into that sort of thing. What it is is a
            "simple introduction to poorly photographed foodstuffs and horrid
            recipes" of the 40's, 50's, and 60's. I guess the ads are pretty
            funny, stuff like when Eleanor Roosevelt endorsed hotdogs (she really
            did) and the Jolly Green Giant was portrayed by actual people. And I
            suppose some of the other stuff is kind of amusing, with that recipe
            for "South of the Border Cheesy Meatloaf," and the pictures of Frosty
            Prune Pie and all. But to tell you the truth, I'm kind of sorry I even
            started telling you about it. Because even though that damned Yahoo!
            with that phony exclamation point and everything made me prostitute
            myself like this, I really miss that old Regrettable Food web site. I
            really do.

Oh, by the way, it's a good website. But, you're going to have to find it yourself.

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