Ten days and four minutes ago, at an unfamaliar stop on the chicago's underground train line, a fory three year old salesman from Minneapolis walked down the concrete steps and was confronted with a young man all dressed in black, with large nose rings and lip rings and ear rings and brow rings. Slumped against the wall frowning, the young city denizen looks up at the shocked man and starts talking in a cool, punky sneer, "Yea, I'm a fartist. No, no... I didn't say artist, dude. T...

In one dimension, a hoboish drunk, late fifties and over-weight, sits stinky and silent on a bench in Loyola Park. No one knows that he is secretly watching everyone there, on the look out for any sort of trouble. That was his job now. He had lost everything except his need to drink... and of late, the cheap wine had started to make his brain resemble smooth vanilla pudding with chocolate chips and coconuts -- a disease that was going to help kill him in twelve days, when the first icey No...

He had a messy memory of messes. Messes big and small, by governments and bosses and parents and neighbors... messes from the wind itself and quakes and eruptions. Messes from bad luck and bad decisions... and like he told a reporter from the Toledo Blade, he found his escape was to become the characters that he played on the stage. This is very much applauded in movie stars of a certain ilk, but he was a fifty seven year old convienance store clerk who was bucking a company poli...

PUFFINS REFUSE TO SHOW THEIR FACES TO THE PASSING CROWDS!! THE QUEEN IS NOT AMUSED.!!! For days now, zookeepers at the Lincoln park zoo have been having trouble with the rather notorious puffins in the main birdhouse. There have been rumbles with other birds in the past, photographs of the bouyant waterfowl flashing gang signs, and whispers that only their well-documented excessive use of drugs keeps them constantly smiling all day -- yet, in spite of all their personal problems, and what...

The world's penguin population is SPINNING IN CIRCLES so fast that they appear like black and white blurs as they scream again and again, "Oh, the shits with you!' Visitors to zoos across the world responded differently to the odd behavior on the part of the notoriously unruly aquatic waterfowl. At New York zoo, the cursing penguins were pelted with empty cans of coke and admonished to "put up some amusing antics, or get the hell out." Surprisingly enough, the normally unarmed penguins retu...

... DESPONDENT HUMANS LEFT BEHIND. In the latest blow to man's image of himself as the center of the universe, a god came down to earth yesterday and caused rapture to erupt, and humans, much to their whiny dismay, were left behind to be ruled by the usal half sensed shadow world of chaos loving, brutal demons. As the deity scooped up the penguins in his hands, thousands of screaming human voices were raised to protest the supreme deity's decision. All known languages were hur...

I bought ninety hamsters. You would think this would be a good thing.... but, inexplicably, things have gone very, very wrong.. This sad tale began when M. had to go to Indiana for a week to spend time with mother. Now, normally she keeps all the cash from me, because . . . truth be told, she keeps the cash away from exactly because of episodes like this. Regardless . . . this time, she left me the rent. 810 dollars cash in the hand. Green and hot. Now, M., she will ...

No one around Cripville didn't have at least one story about being lied to by Frank Schlong. He told whoppers that no one much believed even as he was telling them, and little ones about nothing no one else would ever think to lie about. Other than this he was a fairly bright guy, decent athlete, funny. By virtue of sheer geographical scarcity of kids, he made freinds, and they accepted that sometimes he was full of shit. Frank's teacher's had an inkling about why he lied so much, rea...

slow trickle of tears down the side of a beer no pain in their clear slide once in awhile the gods get to dancing love fills you with everything you longed for in the lonely nights the trite and treacly becomes fine and dandy sometimes when the mood is just right...

SCENE: a young boy's bedroom. He is asleep. Behind them is a snowy night scene. Santa is standing beside the boy reading from a book. NARRATOR Santa keeps a detailed list of who has been good, and who has been bad. CLOSE UP OF SANTA'S FACE FROWNING. NARRATOR Uh, oh... looks like Timmy is a bad boy. Santa sits down the book and reaches into his bag, NARRATOR...

I am getting sick of all the people who force me to kill them. You know what I mean. Last night I was on the el train coming home from scoring a little weed, sitting there buzzing and drawing. Around me was a very normal crowd of all colors. Then The But came on the train, loud talking into a headset phone. She is cursing like mad, everything is, "Fuck that Bitch." She sits down right by me of course. I tell her, "Hey, there are little kids sitting here, so you gotta watch your languag...