Article: 178571 of talk.bizarre Newsgroups: talk.bizarre From: ra@asuvax.eas.asu.edu (Starcap'n Ra) Subject: Catch-22, Chapter XXI -- Theodore Kaldis Message-ID: <D0570u.801@asuvax.eas.asu.edu> Keywords: REPOST for FTSD Organization: t.b Date: Thu, 1 Dec 1994 17:24:29 GMT Lines: 144 Status: O Hopefully my muse will strike me with something new at some point today this FTSD, but in the spirit of meredith I have decided to post a couple examples of so-called "breaking the rules" as a sort of newbie-instruction, if you will. The following is a parody of a chapter from the novel. It is reposted here to provide a rare example of (IMHO) both appropriate cross-posting and use of another's work. I felt the cross-posting was appropriate at the time because all of the newsgroups involved were intimately familiar with T*d Kaldis AND the article was unlikely to generate a long and tedious cross-posted thread; and I felt using another's work was appropriate because it wasn't merely regurgitated as though the reader was assumed to be not as well read as the poster, but rather because the original material was changed in a reasonably resourceful manner calculated to be of interest to the intended audience. By way of explanation for those not around when this was originally posted, and for those who were but don't recall exactly what was happening at the time: T*d Kaldis -- right-wing Rutgers graduate student renowned for anti-homosexuality and anti-abortion postings. I had tangled with him on several occasions, one of which led him to telling his famous tire-iron story in which he and several other students had threatened some gay bar patrons in a parking lot with a tire iron, only to be congratulated by police officers who responded to the incident. Just prior to the repost that follows, T*d had posted something to soc.singles to the effect that men should only wear short haircuts. Suzanne Forgach and David Rasmussen -- "pro-life" posters in talk.abortion. Starcap'n Ra -- a "malcontent hippy" (as per T*d Kaldis in a previous posting). >From ra@asuvax.eas.asu.edu Wed Aug 14 13:03:59 1991 Path: asuvax!ra From: ra@asuvax.eas.asu.edu (Starcap'n Ra) Newsgroups: talk.bizarre,alt.flame,talk.abortion,soc.singles,soc.motss,talk.politics.misc Subject: Catch-22, Chapter XXI -- Theodore Kaldis Message-ID: <953@asuvax.eas.asu.edu> Date: 14 Aug 91 20:03:59 GMT Organization: everywhere Lines: 90 .. XXI .. Theodore Kaldis [ With apologies to Joseph Heller. --sr ] T*d Kaldis was not thinking anything at all about the homosexual problem, but was tangled up in a brand-new, manacing problem of his own: "Starcap'n Ra!" "Starcap'n Ra!" The mere sound of that execrable, ugly name made his blood run cold and his breath come in labored gasps. The net's first mention of the name "Starcap'n Ra!" had tolled deep in his memory like a portentious gong. As soon as the latch of the door had clicked shut, the whole humiliating recollection of the Usenet poster came down upon him in a mortifying, choking flood of stinging details. He began to perspire and tremble. There was a sinister and unlikely coincidence exposed that was too diabolical in implication to be anything less than the most hideous of omens. The name of the man who had debated him that day several years ago on talk.abortion had also been -- "Starcap'n Ra!". And now it was a man named Starcap'n Ra who was threatening to make trouble over the short haircuts he had just ordered the men in soc.singles to wear. T*d Kaldis wondered gloomily if it was the same Starcap'n Ra. He climbed to his feet with an air of intolerable woe and began moving about his office. He felt himself in the presence of the mysterious. The talk.abortion debate, he conceded cheerlessly, had been a real black eye for him. So had the episode about the tire iron and the delay in harrassing the homosexuals on the net, even though harrassing the homosexuals at the bar in New Brunswick finally, he remembered with glee, had been a real feather in his cap with the police officers he spoke with, although losing face on Usenet a second time around, he recalled in dejection, had been another black eye, even though he had won another real feather in his cap by calling the troublesome poster a malcontent hippie, but who had gotten him the real black eye in the first place by goading him into telling the story about the tire iron. That malcontent hippie poster, he remembered suddenly with a stupefying shock, had also been "Starcap'n Ra!" Now there were _three_! His viscous eyes bulged with astonishment and he whipped himself around in alarm to see what was taking place behind him. A moment ago there had been no Starcap'n Ra's in his life; now they were multiplying like hobgoblins. He tried to grow calm. Starcap'n Ra was not a common name; perhaps there were not really three Starcap'n Ra's, but only two Starcap'n Ra's, or maybe even only one Starcap'n Ra--_but_that_really_made_no_difference_! Kaldis was still in grave peril. Intuition warned him that he was drawing close to some immense and inscrutable cosmic climax, and his broad, meaty, squat frame tingled from head to toe at the thought that Starcap'n Ra, whoever he would eventually turn out to be, was destined to serve as his nemesis. Kaldis was not superstitious, but he did believe in omens, and he sat right back down behind his desk and made a cryptic notation on his memorandum pad to look into the whole suspicious business of the Starcap'n Ra's right away. He wrote his reminder to himself in a heavy and decisive hand, amplifying it sharply with a series of coded punctuation marks and underlining the whole message twice, so that it read: Starcap'n Ra!!! (?)! ==================== Kaldis sat back when he had finished and was extremely pleased with himself for the prompt action he had just taken to meet this sinister crisis. "Starcap'n Ra" -- the very sight of the name made him shudder. There were so many esses in it. It just had to be subversive. It was like the word "subversive" itself. It was like "seditious" and "insidious" too, and like "socialist," "suspicious," "fascist" and "Communist." It was an odious, alien, distasteful name, a name that just did not inspire confidence. It was not at all like such clean, crisp, honest, American names as Rasmussen, Forgach, and Kaldis. --Starcap'n Ra {ames,gatech,husc6,rutgers}!ncar!noao!asuvax!kennedy {allegra,decvax,ihnp4,oddjob}--^ ^---------------The Wrong Choice csnet, arpa: kennedy@asuvax.asu.edu