Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 http://www.archive.org/details/processedworld25proc GET AWAY DAIE!! PROCLSSED WORLD 25 Summer/Fall 1990 ISSN 0735-9381 41 Sutter St. #1829 San Francisco, CA 94 1 04 USA MENU OF WEEK'S ACTIVITIES MONDAY 9 a.m. TALKING HLADS WEDNESDAY hv Muhiul RolkuiiSaillrtln p. 2 lOa.m.: BILLBOARD UBLRATION 9 a.m.: THE HOT ONE FRIDAY FRONT MANUAL ,7,uM-r,rit; thilin, hy CJuu Bufe. p. 28 BLF, p. 23 1 a.m.: JOURNEY TO THE LAND 10 a.m.: THE FIRST-HAND LOOK l"/r a/ Irairlin^loil 1 2 noon: TO WORK 2 HOURS A DAY OF "F" and other perceptual Friig, hjauhAte//-0p.8 u'vu'w hy p. 44 problems . tale of IravMng toilhyChtis Caihum. p. 18 I p.m.: THE RIGHT TO BE LAZY review hy Primilivo Morales, p. 36 TUESDAY THURSDAY 9 a.m.: VIOLENCE PROCESSING SAT/SUN Fighting Words and 9:30 a.m.: SIX KINDS OF DARKNESS South Africa Irav.llmlby excerptedJn lion byJohn I I a.m.: MICROFICTIONS Willintti Hrummrr, p. 10 Shirley, p. 47 hy Peter Bales, p. 27 1 2 noon: |UST TWO PRECIOUS 1 1 a.m.: THE OCCULT REVIVAL I 2 noon: POETRY featuring Bames, WEEKS?!! analyse hy Frimituo futiorihy Don U'ehh, p. 40 Corn/or,/. DelVill, Hershey, King Morales, p. 30 iM.tJiusl. SoUap. 32,38-9 2 p.m.: REFLECTIONS OF AN afternoon: FRONT COVER IMMIGRANT hy Malgorzala G hyJHSaan.on p. 35 BACK COVER hy Igor Cxniiwski Processed World is a project of the Bay Area TOUR OPERATORS, PW #25: Angela Socage. This "tour" reflects the ideas and fantasies Center for Art &. Technology, a California Michael Botkin. Primitivo Morales. Frog, Clerk of the specific authors and artists, and non-profit, tax-exempt organization. BACAT Kent, Green Fuschia, Chris Carlsson, Glenn doesn't necessarily represent other contri- can be written to at 1 095 Market Street. Caley Bachmann, Club Med-O, )R Swanson, butors, editors, or BACAT. Suite 109. San Francisco. CA 94103. or Chaz Bufe, D.S. Black, BeanHead. Emily Post- PW is collectively produced &. edited: only phoned at (4 I 5) 626-2979, or faxed at (4 I 5) It and others 626-2685. the printer gets paid. FELLOW TRAVELERS: |ay Stone, Margot Indexed in Alternate Press Index. Pepper, Dennis Hayes, Igor Gasowski, Malgorzata G., Poly Polaroid, Jesse D., Adam Cornford. R.L. Tripp, |C |r. &. a host of others. Talking Heads Bureaucracy? In East Germany a crowd uns ol iliou- lickL inliii ination- of "personzil" sands strong besieged and ultimately Pleasure and its pursuit have always been In many ways the onset stormed and trashed the headquarters of the viewed by repressive regimes as inherently computing has undermined the official con- through Stasi secret police, destroying all ot the radicalizing. If they can define all drug use trol of information. Hackers waltz the corpo- records. In the USA, the former head of our and sex as "criminal" and dangerous to the files of the governments and bulletin boards and secret police, George Bush, was elected society, then they can pass off their need to rations. Computer information networks president. monitor our bloodstreams and thought- modems have created officialdom. Recent dra- While peace threatens to break out in the patterns as benevolent protection instead of completely outside action against hackers rest of the world, the administration casts blatant repression. conian government take the threat. about anxiously for new enemies in new The eighties saw a dramatic ideological shows how seriously they always been primarily wars. With the tragic loss of the "Evil reaction to the radicalism of the sixties and Social control has cares a Empire," they must look for new bogies even the lukewarm liberalism of the seven- practiced by propaganda. Who what personal computeroids think if closer to home. Glued to their dramatiza- ties. It culminated with the implosion of few thousand millions believe what survey-certified tions and "real life" cop shows, the viewing communism which has swept away any the tell them is public waits for the criminals to be pointed lingering impact of the traditional (and "creditable" anchor-persons media drifts off further out. increasingly irrelevant) left. true? But as the mass religious, corpo- So the administration has declared War The War on Desire will be complicated by and further in republican, increasing numbers of people on Desire. Sex and Drugs are the current technological advances, but it is hard to say rate fairyland, experiencing informa- targets, given the attractive multiple man- who will benefit most from them. Will will fine! themselves personally experi- date this War gives to intervene in Latin advances in birth control techniques, like tion dualism. What we learn from our friends and ac- America, harass minorities, and to monitor RU 486, empower women or make it easier ence and simply doesn't jibe with the the bloodstreams and sex lives of federal to control them? Will the expansion of the quaintances — apparently unambiguous workers and citizens. But the targeted drugs information industry benefit the fringe irrelevant but the Mass Media. and sex are less significant than the battle- hackers looting government files — or the truths pandered by This period, when Official Reality be- comes impossible for most people to believe, is historically an uncomfortable one for THE VELVEETA REVOLUTION repressive regimes. In the "Communist" manipulation. Iiposuctional truth-in- Ingredients: partially hydrogenated press releases, subliminal bloc they have fallen. In China and the USA madvertising. procrustean linens and bed they are increasingly resorting to crude force accessories, cellulite screams of a hostage command economy, social ferment (hops, yeast. and censorship. malt, barley, potatoes, caffeine), candle-lit The War on Sex justifies the crusade dissonant diver- graffiti, barebacked resistance, against abortion rights and the refusal to ,' gence. nonvolatile cocktails, sure-footed street teach sex education to prevent AIDS. The savvy, telegenic crowds, and broad backdrops carriers off for broadcast by sympathetic media, backed by War on Drugs justifies aircraft ^ ^ smooth-talkin' Washingtoon jingo blues. the coast of Colombia, "military advisors" ^ ^ * Protract &. Fumble by (remember them?) in Peru, and quasi- military occupation of communities of color in the USA. And both justify the "need" for the administration to keep lists, limit the rights of others, and keep its own business strictly secret. Bush's history in "intelligence" was a non-issue in his election campaign, but his presidential behavior has been more than a touch paranoid. He's considered a "secret" Processed World #25 Page 2 president, and is known not to be above is frightening to contemplate what deliber- corrosives to Authority. lying to maintain secrecy, even for just an ate propaganda is producing right now. But the dictators of China may yet be extra day. He excels at doublespeak, for Processing is power. The revolution that felled by the Fax. Here they can censor example labeling himself "the environmental tumbled the Marcos regime in the Philip- Robert Mapplethorpe's sadomasochistic president." On the basis of general style pines began when the 20 keypunchers of the images in (Cincinnati, or the raunchy lyrics alone it's easy to see Bush as the likely national election results refused to fudge the of 2 Live Crew in Florida and Texas, but the mastermind of the Iran-Contra scam, most counts. The ability of a regime to impose its net result is predictably to promote rather of all in the way he avoided the slightest version of reality is the cause, and the than suppress the disturbing contents. taint of connection with it despite his official measure of its power. The nineties: TV will get more boring, role. China's government insists that there was and real life will get more interesting. While Reagan's "spin doctors" had their no massacre in Tianamen Square. The fact — Michael Botkin & the collective hands full just cleaning up his bloopers — as that it can even say this testifies to its In this issue PW flees the work-a-day testified to by his plummeting reputation continued grasp on power— just as the open world for greener pastures; we've gone on since he became dependent upon the servic- disbelief of this lie by the entire world, vacation! For some of us this has been es of a single commercial publicist— Bush is including most of the people of China, literally true — masquerading as the Anti- developing a machine of staggering propor- testifies to the weakness of that grasp. Economy League several of our ciew invad- tions. In the USA— after China the last bastion ed Central & Eastern Europe — while for In addition to refusing to let anyone know of conservatism in the world — the war is others the vacation has been a theoretical about what it's doing, the administration is heating up. Will the powers that be main- concept. We have accordingly dug into our showing insatiable curiosity about the do- tain their monopoly of processing, and keep singular & collective pasts to cast light on ings of the rest of us. The Wars "require" the the complacent masses quiet? Or will the "anti-work." federal apparatus to encroach on the elusive facade rip as the gap between the blissfully Med-O reflects on a journey through "right to privacy" more than at any time ignorant haves and the increasingly misera- Africa in "The Land of F," while William since the McCarthy era. ble have-nots grows? The Bush administra- Brummer focuses on South Africa and its Pregnant teens, if they want an abortion, tion is counting on a preemptive strike at turbulent course in "Violence Processing." are increasingly being forced to get the desire, at sex and drugs, those venerable Chris Carlsson revisits Brazil (see also his permission of their biological parents.