back EPISODE #9, APRIL 2001 (Pieced this one together from an incomplete set of letters. We'll add to it soon enough... I know we forgot some good ones. But please read on. Remember, send Bend [Jenkins] an email or streetmail. and you to run the risk... words@bendpress.com or 22500 S. Vermont Ave, Torrance, CA 90502 USA) FROM 5 CHIPS TO 180. NOT BAD. Subject: Luck of the Half-Irish Date: 1/26/01 Andy, I think you've heard by now, but my overactive serendipity gland had something of an outburst this week. Between taking a sizable gamble and Winning in Vegas this Tuesday, the bizarre circumstances through which I got my job, the fortune of having found an affordable one bedroom in LA with hardwood floors (did I ever tell you about this? The view from the bedroom window is the word SCIENTOLOGY), and that time I found $50 on the ground, I'd say my grinning mug can go into the dictionary to illustrate "charmed life." And I'd like to emphasize to you, your involvement. It's strange, I'd read Bob's [Kronbauer] words in your Now and Responses before, and admired them, but certainly never thought, "I should invite the person who wrote those words to drive to Las Vegas with me." Maybe this is the flaw in my thinking in general, maybe I should look at every interesting stranger that I come across as someone I could spend 5 + 5 hours with isolated in a car. And someone I could toss my last 5 chips to and have him magically turn them into 180. That aside, I might have pussied out if he hadn't turned out to be a correspondent of yours. So thanks for that. Life ain't bad, --Mary Chen, Los Angeles PS My side of the story is here if you're interested. TERRIBLE ROCK MUSIC JASON LEE MADE FAMOUS Date: 1/27/01 You're a madman pushing those 1 & 0's thru cyberspace! Release the Milk CD on Bend now! --Rob Abeyta, Redondo Beach, Ca CURTAINS FOR KELSEY Date: 2/07/01 A J Bender, I see you have been up to more fine fine work. Your front page design has once again dropped-kicked my ass into another dimension via your sonic foot. Mercury must be a relative of yours. I can see those little wings from here. I peeped the Response section. Lots of tasty morsels to feast on. Kristine Brogno's tale of Khan is my favorite. The Consumption section is so slick it made me slide right outta my chair. I zapped in my orders for #8 and #10 as soon as I found out about it. Ahhhhhhh, Yeaaaaah. Here is a picture of me as 'Curtain Man." Curtain Costume Instructions: Materials: some string (and/or elastic), two curtains, needle and thread (safety pins or hot glue can be substituted) and a scissors. 1) Get two curtains from a thrift store or wherever you can find them. Fold one of them in half and cut a hole (for your head) in the middle of the fold and put it on yourself poncho style. 2) Next take the piece of material you cut out for the head hole and make a mask out of it. You can use elastic or string to affix the mask to your face. Attach the elastic or string to the mask using needle and thread, hot glue or safety pins. You can even cut small holes on either side of the mask and simply tie string to the mask. Other masks you may already have work great also. 3) Now take the other curtain and drape it over your head, like little red riding hood's cape (as seen in the photo). Cut slits in the second curtain around the neckline, so you can put a drawstring around the neck. This will help keep the cape in place. The material is usually heavy, so it needs a little help. There you go. A cool costume in just minutes. I got the idea from reading an article about Parliament-Funkadelic on tour back in the day. P-Funk band members would steal curtains from hotel rooms and wear them in concerts. True. These instructions were also mailed to Mr. Bob K and Ms. Lori D. Those two cats good souls. Also true. Thank you for introducing me to them at your online party. The snow is really coming down in good old MN today. My mom works at Walnut Grove School (yes, the one-time home of Laura Ingells) and school was called off after only ten minutes of the first hour. My old man is emailing me updates almost hourly. Last week the newspaper delivery person put our paper through a neighbors window, rendering the paper unreadable. I picked up the mess and separated the shards of glass from the consonants and vowels. I plan to oakchestrate the letters into a tale for you. Speaking of newspapers, the next issue of Oak Pulp is damn near completed. It's a double issue with half of it done by that big bastard Mike Lenz. We both worked as photographers for two papers in Marshall, Mn and our stories will expose the freaks (including us) behind the wheel of marshall's print media buses. prepare to laugh and be sickened. i have been suspicious of newspaper staff since then. Sometimes I can almost read the nasty sex and booze between the lines. Of course putting something out like this makes me as much of a hypocrite as the people I wrote about. I'm weak. Keep on doin' that voodoo that you do so well, CHB member number 706, --Oak Kelsey HITS Date: 2/08/01 Andy, Just writing to let you know I really enjoy your site. So much so that I mentioned it to surfstation.lu -- a great design site, and told them to post it in their news section. They checked out Bend and loved it as well. It's up and posted in their news section. Thanks for all the great reading material and for being an inspiration to us all. --Jeff Demarco HITS AGAIN Date: 2/08/01 At last some content... I'm surprised I found your site through a Design Portal (see HITS, above) that often promotes empty yet flashy and beautiful designs over content. Yours conveys both. Inspiring. Thanks. --Nicolas Grandmangin THOUSANDS OF TUBES OF CAULKING... Date: 2/12/01 I went to LA to look for a place to live this weekend. I think it went OK. On the way back down to San Diego there wasn't much traffic and I actually got to drift off in thought instead of constantly applying the clutch and thinking about how much my heel hurt as a result. It was like I was meditating at the wheel when I came up with this idea that just might save the planet. I call it the Recycling Shanty Towns Program, and it goes something like this: Basically, the government of the USA and Canada need to band together to get a new type of recycling program in place, one that won't replace any current programs, but will compliment them and make "it" actually work. Every household would be supplied with garbage compactors, ones that spit out 2" by 2" by 2" squares of matter. The stuff put into these compactors could be anything that can't be recycled and isn't entirely organic: milk containers, egg cartons, saran wrap, pizza boxes, foam, that sort of stuff. The squares would be put out in front of everybody's houses on Fridays to be picked up by the Shanty Town Programmers and dropped off at a processing plant. Once there, the squares would be dipped into a heated vat of plastic that came from all sorts of containers that couldn't be recycled, producing a somewhat solid brick that would consist of crap on the inside and some not entirely offensive gunk on the outside. These bricks would then be shipped to third world countries, along with thousands of tubes of caulking, and instruction booklets on how to turn the bricks and caulking into fully furnished homes that would endure for longer than any of those garbage shanty towns that we're somewhat accustomed to seeing in National Geographic and on those save the children commercials that you always change the channel on. Sally Struthers would have no case to plead if all of the families in every single developing country of the world were living in solid, highly insulated, fully furnished mansions that came to them as a direct result of our culture's disgusting consumerism and waste. That's the plan. This girl that I met through a friend told me that she thinks she's "going to be the next teen sensation". She didn't elaborate when I asked her to, she just said "I'm going to be the next teen sensation." She doesn't do anything like sing or dance or act or show herself in public in any way that would promote some sort of teen sensationalism surrounding her so, uh, I don't know. She's got big boobs though, and she talks about them all of the time. Like, "I've got big tits, and you don't." "I DO have some large melons, don't I?" "My back hurts, it must be these monster jugs I've been lugging around all day." Always comments like that. If I had them, I'd probably be talking about them all the time too, though. That'd be something, huh? Still Canadian, --Bob K., Los Angeles LIGHT IS INFORMATION Date: 1/25/01 It's late and I don't know why I'm writing or is it early 4:30am and another 2 hours of work or at least sittin' here I work support for an audio company, so I wait by the phone till somebody has a problem and calls in so far it seems like England isn't having any, 'cause nobody's called I'm sitting with a fast connection trying to remember sites I wanted to look at haven't been to yours in awhile still don't have Valley soon... soon reread I Check the Mail... again the other day this is my first week of the graveyard hours so I'm still a little weird not sleeping much by the time I get home my body thinks it should be up for the day and then the roommate and the people upstairs keep waking me up I've been writing a bunch of friends tonight to fill the time but that's over, so I'm writing a stranger my birthday was a couple of days ago and I didn't feel anything birthdays seem to be losing any meaning to me I can't figure out if that's a good thing or not going to go now --Matthew Marteinsson Matthew, One time it was my birthday on a work day. I think I was turning 21, so I had all this anticipation built up. Mainly because my coworkers always did some deal for everyone's birthday. So you'd walk around all day pretending you didn't know. Ridiculous human game. Well, this day I was doing just that when Windy came running up to me and grabbed me by both arms. "Oh my God, you just have to go up to the front office right now!" This is it, I thought. The song is about to begin. I burst into the reception area expecting a throng of coworkers, but no, just one little man -- a very little man, a midget -- dropping off a package. Windy wanted me to run up front to see a midget. We both looked at each, the midget and I, for a split second too long. I turned and pretended to look in my mail slot, but he knew. Birthday's are for other people. Good luck with your sleep switch, I've always wanted to try that. An acquaintance of mine once told me that light is simply information. And that your brain just wants to -- maybe has to -- process it. How do you block out the information to sleep? He used to have these big panels he put up in front of his windows in order to block out the light, so he could write. --Andy Date: 3/03/01 I've got black plastic up on the inside of my blinds that way it doesn't look all creepy to the outside world. That, with the aid of some black tape, is slowly eliminating all the light. The problem, I've found, is I'm awake by the time I get home [in the morning]. I keep meaning to try and bring sunglasses for the ride home but I keep forgetting. I don't remember my last dream. I used to have my alarm set on a radio station so I'd always have dreams with people telling me the news and singing songs to me. I do keep having these dreams about losing my teeth. I bite down and either my teeth shatter, or fall out in my hand, and I end up wandering around with the pieces. Hope you get some sleep tonight. --Matthew WHAT WOULD WE DO IN YOUR PORT? AND WHAT IS A CANADIAN PROMISE? Subject: Tried getting in Date: 2/27/01 Mr. You tried getting into one of my ports... NOT GOOD... keep it up and you will be shut down permanently. That is a Canadian promise. --Darlene DUPERE & RILKE Subject: things you find when you aren't really looking for anything. Date: 3/01/01 Andy, I found this written in an old note book of mine, thought you might like it. Do you think that rock-n-roll is dead? I do. --Tom Dupere For the sake of a single verse, one must see many cities, men, and things. One must know the animals, one must feel how the birds fly and know the gesture with which the little flowers open in the morning. One must be able to think back to roads in unknown regions, to unexpected meetings and to partings one had long seen coming. To days of childhood that are still unexplained. To days in rooms withdrawn and quiet and to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to seas, to nights of travel that rushed along on high and flew with all the stars- and it is not yet enough if one may think of all this. One must have memories of many nights of love, none of which was like the others, of the screams of women in labor. But one must also have been beside the dying, must have sat beside the dead in the room with the open window and the fitful noises. And still it is not enough to have memories. One must be able to forget them when they are many, and one must have the great patience to wait until they come again. For it is not yet the memories themselves. Not until they have turned to blood within us, to glance, and gesture, nameless, and no longer to be distinguished from ourselves- not till then can it happen that in a most rare hour the first word of a verse arises in their midst and goes firth from them. --Rainer Maria Rilke THE CLERK LAUGHED? Date: 3/03/01 andy, i do not know if you remember me. i bet not. the german guy that asked for a copy of "i check the mail" last year. couldn't afford the 30 bucks for it. click. walked into a borders - bookstore in nyc a few months after that and gave it a try. the clerk laughed as he heard the title, but did find it in the list. bookstores in your country even page you as soon as they receive the ordered book. they did. woke me up. now i own a copy of those 1000 printed in december '94. paid $8.95. click. the girl in my bed fell asleep, tried to be as silent as i could. so i took a book. your book. after rereading some passages i remembered your email. you told me that you still have some prints and offered me one. never answered that email. now i do. thank you for that. she almost woke up as i switched on the computer. enjoyed reading the lines these guys wrote to you. imagined how you must have enjoyed reading them. decided to drop you these lines. don't know exactly why. maybe it's just the effect the book has on me. going to berlin tomorrow. school starts again next week. austria-concussion still gives me a major headache. need sleep now. --Robin SKATEBOARDING ON HOTH Date: 3/07/01 Andy, I have crash landed on ice planet Hoth, there is almost three feet of snow here. I am sending out the flares. It may too late for any of us... --Tom Dupere PROMISING MARRIAGE Date: 3/08/01 andy, american kids shoot each other in school. there is no speedlimit on german highways. simple. berlin is canceled. the girl in my bed is moving to hamburg next week. promised her to help. promised my heart to marry her. that plan might be canceled as well, i think. berlin is fun, though. at least in the dark. have never seen it in daylight. strange parties. fun parties. loads of fine people to meet. loads of assholes to run into. slept till 5 pm almost every day, last time i went there. you should go there to check if there is any daylight at all. funny. typing. do you think digital mail can ever replace handwritten shit? because it keeps screwing up. like it screwed up my first try. --Robin BEWARE THE OLD WOMEN Date: 3/09/01 Andy, the old women in my apartment complex have formed an alliance against me, I am sure of it. I see them peeking out from behind there curtains at me when I park my truck. I own a pair of socks with the number 3 and a dead man's name on them but I am not a race fan. What could all of this mean? --Tom Dupere SATISFIED CUSTOMER Date: 3/13/01 Hi Mr. Jenkins/Bend, It just got here yesterday! Thank you!!! You really have no idea how excited I am... This is a really cool addition to my growing art collection, and thanks for all the other cool stuff. Ok I'm gonna go wet myself again... --Peter MacAdams NO COMMENT Date: 3/16/01 Mr. Jenkins, Who the heck is this guy? Yours Truly, --Chip Johnson FISHERMAN Date: 3/23/01 The coffee maker is my favorite sound. Painted curbs are my favorite color. Andy, do you know what the going rate is on youth culture these days? I would wager that it is quite a lot. The cola companies would know, they seem to have there finger on the pulse. I am growing a beard and heading out to sea. Pirate or fisherman? I should just stop watching TV instead. Good day to you, --Tom Dupere PISSER Date: 3/27/01 Pisser looking books, yo. peace, nago GOODWILL HUNTING Date: 3/28/01 I went to see this house where there's a separate-ish kind of apt. It's really nice, in the middle of Griffith Park and all. Anyway, it's Tudor, but the distorted Disney kind of Tudor, and there are little garden gnomes out front. After knocking on the door, I tried to straighten up a bit, flatten my hair and wrap my scarf around a few more times. The arguing queens came closer to the door and I could HEAR them checking me out through the peep. Anyway, it turns out these two old guy guys, Chris and Bob are PROFESSIONAL LIBRARIANS. Chris was really bitter and quiet, but Bob was chatty as all get out. At one point he said "Heather, who lives here now, chooses to NOT interact with us, WHICH IS FINE. but if she did, I would like it. As you can probably tell, I'm quite social." He went on to tell me that I would have full jacuzzi privileges. I can't get the image of his little naked body waving to me from the hot tub, beckoning me. --Susanne Howe, Los Angeles PERFECT Date: 4/03/01 I went into the bathroom at the bookstore and as I was conducting my business a large scrawl caught my attention. In permanent black marker the words 'Liz Phair Rules' were written up near the ceiling. Made my day. --Tom Dupere... BLACK JUICE WORDS Date: 4/03/01 Andy Whenever I sit to read your stuff in front of the screen I get all antsy, as if I have just consumed a whole pot of Peets coffee on three hours rest. I know it's good, I just want my head to absorb it the way my stomach takes to the black juice. Thanks --Griffin, San Francisco I BET I COULD DO A REALLY GOOD JOB AT PUTTING PETROL IN PEOPLE'S DEATH SLEDS Date: 4/05/01 I'm training to be a boxer. But I don't want to hit anything that is alive. I will only fight dirty laundry and bread dough. I guess bread dough is alive though, you have to put yeast in it. Okay, never mind about the bread dough. I'll have to think of an alternative. I could always fight snow. There wont be much more snow for a while, that'll give me enough time to get ready to take it on next year for the world title. I need to get in shape for that. Anyway, I've been doing two to six hun every day with our new ball bearing handled jump rope and training with the striking bag we put up in the basement. It is so loud and it shakes the whole house and makes our roommate spittin' mad. Maybe the noise will scare the ghosts out of our haunted house. Or maybe it'll just make them really, really angry with us and they'll start breaking stuff. I pray it is not the latter. Latter day saints pray. I think they pray. I'm mostly writing this down because try as I might I am still unemployed and I have nothing else I have to do today. They wouldn't even hire me at the gas station around the corner. I filled out an application because they had a sign on the corner that said 'GREAT JOBS - NOW HIRING' and they never even called me in to test me to see if I was an efficient gas station attendant. I bet I could do a really good job at putting petrol in people's death sleds in a speedy, courteous, and orderly fashion. I've sent my resume out for countless administrative assistant type positions. I didn't receive even one call. So I started going on daily application filling out missions on my bike. They didn't hire me at the grocery store, or the book store, or movie rental store, or the TV station, or at UPS to sort boxes at three in the morning, or in the mail room of several offices, or to do data entry at dozens of other offices, or to assemble things at the electronics factory, or the music store, or the movie theater, or at Value Village, or at the art store to wipe down counters with Windex. They wouldn't even let me file with four different temp agencies. They told me I didn't have the sort of skills they hire out for. The factory temp agency said there isn't any work right now. I just don't know what to make of it. Maybe it has something to do with our bushy tailed national leader. I've been working for free doing HTML editing at one company once every couple of weeks, the guy says he's going to pay me when the project is done but there's no telling when that will be. I'm not going to Europe this summer after all, since I am slowly milking my savings to buy sacks of potatoes and generic orange juice in bulk. And it's okay. I'm actually having a really nice time up here. I love living in this village and in this haunted house. I've been playing on skateboards and playing hopscotch and hiking and visiting with Canadians and making lots of things. It sure would be swell to have some income though. I don't understand what I have missing on my job applications, like why they aren't calling me back. For hours available, I always put I have a completely open schedule, I have a lot of computer skills, I have a college degree (maybe it's because it's a visual arts degree, maybe it doesn't really count), and I have a good employment history and lots of references. Hmmmm, mysterious. Anyway, I guess I'll just keep training to be a boxer and hope something comes along. --Lori D., Portland, Oregon VALIDATION Subject: Kissed by a Door-to-Door Angel Date: 4/05/01 I knew things would look up, I just knew it. I went downstairs right now to go out and do my jumps and when I opened the front door, there was Good News taped right to it. I just found out I have been selected to receive a prestigious award. I have attached my Certificate of Recognition to this email. I just wanted to let you know that my luck is changing for the better. --Lori D. THE CHURCH OF BEND, STARTED FOR ONLY $29.95 Date: 4/06/01 Minister Charles Simpson has the power to make you a LEGALLY ORDAINED MINISTER within 48 hours!!!! BE ORDAINED NOW! As a minister, you will be authorized to perform the rites and ceremonies of the church!! WEDDINGS! MARRY your BROTHER, SISTER, or your BEST FRIEND!! Don't settle for being the BEST MAN or BRIDES' MAID. FUNERALS! A very hard time for you and your family. Don't settle for a minister you don't know! BAPTISMS! You can say "WELCOME TO THE WORLD!!!! I AM YOUR MINISTER AND YOUR UNCLE!!" What a special way to welcome a child of God. FORGIVENESS OF SINS! The Catholic Church has practiced the forgiveness of sins for centuries (Forgiveness of Sins is granted to all who ask in sincerity and willingness to change for the better!)! VISIT CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES! Since you will be a Certified Minister, you can visit others in need!! Preach the Word of God to those who have strayed from the flock WANT TO START YOUR OWN CHURCH?? After your LEGAL ORDINATION, you may start your own congregation!! At this point you must be wondering how much the Certificate costs. Right? Well, let's talk about how much the program is worth. Considering the value of becoming a CERTIFIED MINISTER I'd say the program is easily worth $100. Wouldn't you agree? However, it won't cost that much. Not even close! My goal is to make this life changing program affordable so average folks can benefit from the power of it. Since I know how much you want to help others, you're going to receive your Minister Certification for under $100.00... Not even $50.00... You are going to receive the entire life-changing course for only $29.95. For only $29.95 you will receive: 1) 8-inch by 10-inch certificate IN COLOR, WITH GOLD SEAL (certificate is professionally printed on an INK PRESS!). 2) Proof of Minister Certification in YOUR NAME!! 3) SHIPPING IS FREE!!! LIMITED TIME OFFER: ORDER TODAY! SEND Only $29.95 US (CREDIT CARD, CASH, CHECK, OR MONEY ORDER) For Shipping OUTSIDE the US please add $11.00. back