hey dog I’m so down with this homey-page rap
midi’s & mp3s boom blast
gonna light up a whole row of clients
out there in those corporate teletubby lands
don’t flash that mad dog look ese
ain’t no school book learnin’
to skateboard the wire
yo jack some FrontPage & 2dog freebie
stuff
hotwire a page & peace-out ridin’
before any alarm starts janglin’
might have to spot weld a piece & spray primer
do some slash work by hand under the hood
it won’t be a boss low-rider from hell
but you won’t be foot bookin’ or in a cell
I’m tellin’ ya / on hit ese!
let’s jet for the wire
E-poem: twenty-six
Cotton Mather writes
The Wonders of the Invisible World
with Microsoft Word for Windows
the first planters of these colonies in chill Redmond
were a chosen generation of men
who were first so pure as to disrelish
many things which they thought wanted reformation
in patches & service packs & upgrades
those good men imagined
that they should leave their posterity
in a place where they should never
see the inroads of profanity or superstition
in the half-way covenant of
beta release operating systems
programmers are a people of God
settled in those which were once the devil’s territories
& it may easily be supposed that
the devil was exceedingly disturbed
when he perceived such a people
here accomplishing the promise of old
made by heathen English teachers in
classrooms with rude pencils & chalk
mere talk without tag or hypertext connection
now an army of devils is horribly broke in
upon the place which is the center & after a sort
the firstborn of our cyber settlements
the laptops of the good people
are filled with doleful wav & midi shrieks
their Pentiums tormented by invisible hands in their pockets
& with tortures altogether preternatural from
the lingering taste of the first Apple & Big Mac
there was little occasion to prove such witchcraft
it being evident & notorious to all users
the first thing installed was the testimony of the bewitched
in java applets that failed to load
whereof several testified that the shape
of the prisoner did oftentimes very grievously virtually
pinch them
choke them
bite them
& afflict them
urging them to write their e-mail addresses in a book
whereupon they would be spammed by the foul demon until
they despaired of the errand in the wilderness
rebooting the OS of Christ’s original church
to crown all in this federal case against the Microsoft craft
muted whispering subconscious
at the far edge of the new land
Bridget Bishop’s cellar wall was unzipped
where they did in holes & folders & hidden files
of the said old wall & bra
find several poppets of Mr. Gates
made up of gifs & hog’s bristles & Pepsi cans
with headless pins pushed in them
the points being outward directed
whereof she could give no account to the court
that was reasonable or tolerable
or would even pass debugging
we hope the uninstall of those dll files through this righteous
case
will be attended with deliverance of some
who have lain archived for many years in a most sad condition
under they knew not whose evil remote access
which held them back unconnected from the saving wire
E-poem: twenty-seven
The New User Primer
A: In Adam’s fall we sinned all
mount floppy
ol’ granddad booted the system
& got the account from ISP
B: thy life to mend this book attend
Essential System Administration
read it / live it
also see: The Dutiful User’s Promises (DUP):
I will obey my administrator
I will submit to my UC
I will learn my catechism
I will reverence God’s sanctuary
C: the cat doth play & after slay (your mouse)
this is why pets are not allowed in the computer lab
play with the persiankitty for a day
& suffer loss of account everlasting
never a cat in the path
not even a cat in a hat
see DUP:
mind little play
fear God all day
D: a dog will bite a thief at night
also in the day
even on Sunday
dogs are not allowed in the lab
see: C:
seeing-eye dogs excepted
F: thy prayer ftp to the lord
his grace to download to thy local bin
file transfer protocol follows
the Westminster Assembly for connectionalism
(Cambridge Platform release 1648)
G: as runs the (sand in an hour)glass man’s life doth pass
server reset the connection (damnation!)
do you want to reconnect?
learn to save your work (cf. Ben Franklin)
see DUP:
from death’s arrest no age is free
I in the burying place may see
graves shorter there than I
files with zero bytes
J: Job feels the rod yet believes God
to kill all jobs use slay
the syntax for rods (as in branches of a tribe)
is separation by a forward slash
example: /yahweh/dev/Adam/ . . . /Abe/reuben/sandwich/mustard/usr/local
see DUP:
for our God is a consuming fire
for death & heartburn prepared be
S: Samuel anoints whom God appoints
(simulated anointment method for user entry login)
compare to su (super user)
Samuel gives you keys to the kingdom
be careful
see DUP:
at night logoff prepared to have
thy sleep / thy death
thy bed / thy grave
U: Uriah’s beauteous wife made David seek his life
David should not have been cruising for porn
ditto Bathsheba
ditto Monica
urea is different
W: the wire gives life
(the whine is nonalcoholic)
Jacob climbed the wire his lord to find
with ISP I will never sever connection
whales in the sea skip rope with the holy wire
Z: Zacheus he did climb the tree his lord to see
Jesus told him to stay out of the tree (Luke
19:5)
from the root directory up
you will get lost in unix trees
look out windows
stay out of trees
(Zaccur was a musician for David)
E-poem: twenty-eight
West Texas Tech: download a future
Classes: Spring 2001
Welding 010: web link welding: millions of broken links lay
useless in bins at www repositories for disabled links. Learn to repair them &
help Internet users reach their info-destinations. Web arc-welder provided.
Students provide goggles, gloves & link solder. Lab fee. On campus.
Speech 010: virtual speaking: terrified of public
speaking? Most people prefer a heart attack to public speaking. Let Willow Talk™ give your speech. Distance
education virtual pedagogy allows you to:
1. Use voice
recognition software & a microphone to input
your speech. The computer will
automatically throughput
(type) your speech.
2. Run checkers (spell, grammar, readability, link).
3. Listen to your speech spoken by different voices
(Betty, Ursula, Frank).
4. Select your custom voice for the virtual
occasion.
5. Output (e-mail) your speech to your e-prof™.
E-prof™ is an
evaluation program similar to those used by major corporations
to evaluate resumes (e-prof™: evaluation protocol for
registrar’s official finding). E-prof™ insures impartial &
unbiased judgment.
6. E-prof™ will e-mail you a critique of your speech
& your grade.
7. Listen to e-prof™’s critique using your voice
recognition program.
Distance ed. Lab fee.
English 009: spelling: analysis of electronic dictionaries:
on-line, bundled, stand alone. Texts: Microsoft Bookshelf, Oxford English
Dictionary (CD-ROMs). Browser required for on-line texts.
Examination of nonstandard dictionaries: Aussie slang, cyber slang, linux, hacker speak. Special
characters: biblical, symbols, wingdings, webdings, monotype sorts. Acronym
theory. Distance ed. Lab fee.
English 010: composition: Internet means you no longer waste
time staring at a blank sheet of virtual paper. Instead:
1. Visit www.cheathouse.com or a similar quality termpaper library.
2. Download your selection. Templates, wizards & scanned sources
may be substituted.
3. Cut & paste to personalize your paper. Merged
files are fine.
4. E-mail your paper to e-prof™.
5. Up-load your graded paper to a termpaper library to help future
students.
Distance ed. Lab fee.
English 011: grammar: analysis of word processing grammar
checkers. Rules for grammar: business, programming, generative. Custom
settings: system messages, help files, digital vs. analog. Students receiving a C or
better will be awarded a bumper sticker: Grammar Bytes at WTT. Distance ed. Lab fee.
English 012: search engines: diesel, gas, hydrogen
fuel cell, electric, rocket, steam. How to gauge horsepower & calculate
mileage. EPA emisson standards. Route tracing, road surfaces, data bases,
weigh stations. After-market products: headers, neon lighting, nerf bars,
hydraulics. Internet micrometer required. On campus. Lab fee.
English 013: technical communication: mail: bundled & stand
alone mail programs. Virtual stamps, weight rates, zip codes, postcards, attachments,
video & voice e-mail, address books, signature files, multiple recipients, digital
IDs, stationery. Theory of e-mail & browser integration for internet commerce
(requires a credit card number). World postal zones, tariffs, customs, Swatch
Internet time. History of e-mail. On campus. Lab fee.
Animal Science 010: bovine transport: theory & practice of
cattle transfer. Downloading, uploading, auto-transfer. Texts include the
program TRUCK™ (transfer rely using cached kiloflops).
Rubber boots required. Distance ed. Lab fee.
E-poem: twenty-nine
Edward Taylor prays
to recover Windows from a crash
o lord
inspire this crumb of dust ’til it display
come on / electro baby / crunch those imaginary numbers
the bellows of thy spirit blow & whisper code
’til the fire doth glow to
light up that world wide window
come on / swing open heaven’s gate
let that light shine in
eat / eat
thou at the table head above
meat / medicine / Hershey’s sweet Kisses & Dr. Pepper
be not my machine a bidden guest at the banquet?
Had not my soul’s
(thy conduit)
pipes & modem stopped been
with mud & sin & rude severance
what ravishment would’st thou convey
from servers vast planetary arrayed
if only connection be made
& this heresy of blank screen dialed away
saints’ heavens-lost happiness restored
I kenning through astronomy divine
virtually find black imps that snap & bite
my sin! my sin! these cursed dregs
of some errant finger’s forgotten mouse stray
a file cracked leaking
green yellow blue streaked poison
that will not graciously display
a 500 MHz Pentium-3 screamer
drove home nailed
well clinched
to eternally hold the road
but for sin’s inattentive deletion & devil’s unallocation
when once the window whispered open
the trap door of hell framed half bidden
the porn cascaded in directories & bedrooms vast
little girls so sweet
languished in anorexia & celestial famine sore
with hard TV dinners microwaved on the prop table
foresworn & buzzed about by the silly fly
while the venom elf rappelled fall foul thereon
to tangle Adam’s race
answering nature’s call through the wire’s copper grace
strive & recover what numbered strength hath got
& Redmond labor wrought
thy holy word a distaff & flyer connected neat
not for this my flesh & human word
make this machine / lord
thy spinning wheel complete
E-poem: thirty
know the saying?
it’s connection that counts
in the old days
crates just flopped around the room
like sorry ol’ hounds
trying to pass for typewriters
when they didn’t decline
to shake hands with a printer
snooty ol’ coots
blinked through the browser wars dozing
(screen saver off)
defect to Netscape?
what’s that?
those internet stocks is plain air
give me Coke in a glass bottle
that’s the real thing
a rotary phone
IP numbers unknown
slow down / what’s the hurry?
there’s haze & thickness if you care to notice
sit on the porch a spell
might spot a lightin’ bug tonight
watch that Echo satellite drive by
nah she don’t talk
let those kids do the racin’
the machine is downsimmering components
meanwhile there’s virtually nothing to do
no newsgroups to napalm
no CDs to burn
no e-mail to slit & sort
no search engine to gas
no porn to palm
no jokes to shuffle
nowhere to go / nothing to do
just leave that ’lectric ta hum in the wire
have some ice tea / you play pinochle?
the quick brown fox jumped over the sleeping dog
no Sculley to flirt
(like ta get in her skirt / yum yum)
have you checked your e-mail today Fox?
her hand in your pocket
I’m a doctor / don’t skitter
your box caught a virus only when you fed it lunch
& no cookies in the sack
(remember: Ally eats just one)
my God those was homespun times
not a cookie to your name
website hell!
ain’t bifocals good enough no more?
race ’round the world with that fool hose
gettin’ chuck full of cookies ta spoil your dinner
guess what?
ya never left the porch
them windows ain’t nothing like a gassed-up ’Vette
or phantom jet
Duane might shoot ya in the eye with a .44
& I’m tempted to let ’em
just so ya’ll know what a real machine can do
E-poem: thirty-one
hey Donny
know Duane on the bike over to Thalia?
the geezer what threatens to peddle to Egypt?
that’s the one
plannin’ a two wheeled haj
less he’s got by Libyan terrorists
& sent to the future
well I e-mailed this guy up in Newfoundland
Quoyle
runs a inkrag up there
writes shippin’ news
(that’s when they’re shippin’ the newest
computers
so ya can get the first ones
think it’s a column in PC
Mag)
told ’em about Duane
just kind of come up
long trips & life changes group
said he knew a guy called Nutbeem
these would be e-mail names Lonny?
Quoyle & Nutbeem
like CB handles used to be?
(I know one teacher:
Byelo-Baptist Buzzard
that’s Buster Lickle’s handle
I know he don’t like it
but he answers to it)
guess so
said this Nutbeem
rode a bike from Houston to LA
that might qualify him for a nut-beam name tag
he run into UFOs on the trip?
didn’t say
but he said it was the most terrible trip in the world
sandstorms & gila monster lizards
terrifyin’ & lethal heat
freezin’ winds & a Blue Norther
even claimed wolves & a Cessna what dropped flour bombs
think he was exaggeratin’ those
swore if he could pry that bicycle seat
out of the crack of his lycra slick ass
he’d sail a boat to the north pole
got as far as Newfoundland
looked on a map
pretty far up from Houston
what do ya think?
ya was thinkin’ of sharin’ this with Duane
’fore he pedals east?
warn him about gila monster attacks?
he used to have CB in his truck
but he ain’t got e-mail on his bike
if he still wants to go
thought we could go on-line
do a webpage journal
specially if he runs into all that foreign weather
we could link the weather page
they’re real cool
know they got a girl?
talks the temperature right at ya now
if you’re connected
maybe pick up that girl & a sponsor & a banner
put a little trip odometer ’long side a hit counter
"you’re the umteenth hitchhiker picked up since when we started"
might be funny
"West Texas to OPEC without a drop of gas"
get up in the mornin’ & wonder
where’s ol’ Duane today? / think I’ll plot ’em
what do ya think Donny?
pedal on the web?
Lonny you’re gettin’ too far from dirt
flyin’ out there by wire
downloadin’ somethin’ different every minute
my girlfriend’s naggin’ me ta stay on the ground
wants me to limp ’round afoot
to local places offline
without www in the address
that’s plumb crazy
second worst fear in Texas is bein’ afoot
ain’t nobody but Duane ever walked 12 miles in human memory
I mean not since there wuz trucks to run
least ways the psychiatrist put the galoot on a bike
so folks can think his license wuz took for DUI
ya gotta admit
that’s more respectable than walkin’ on the road
like a ’scaped convict
it’s not that bad Lonny
she’ll allow me the TV clicker & a truck
it’s stuperizin’ through windows
& the phone line all wrangled up
what she can’t abide
says she wants stuff to actually move
when she goes for a ride
don’t know Donny
sounds pretty severe
you’re gonna be bumpin’ in dirt road ruts
on your ol’ Schwinn bomber
when ya could be infobahn racin’ with Al Unser Jr.
like pokin’ a eye out with a fork
better look for a upgrade in a girl
before you’re infobahn roadkill
E-poem: thirty-two
Donny
don’t let that child
throw any more of those
little lizards in the hot tub
says he’s makin’ soup for the dog
maybe a dribble of dos Equis will cool ’em down
or least ways make boilin’ tolerable
works for me
I swear to God Donny
since you got that virtual internet life
you never leave off that laptop
not even bubblin’ in the hot tub
it’s worse than the Dallas Cowboys on TV
seems you’d rather stare in that nerdy box
than look at some actual cheerleader cleavage
(teacher / reverend Rawley says
titties are fat in a sack when they ain’t fake)
(we don’t say that Frank because it’s vulgar slang
& G. G. Rawley & the Byelo-Baptists don’t teach school
because they’re too ignorant to be licensed by the state of
Texas)
look Donny
nothin’ synthetic but the sweater
wantta go for one of them Calliope High rides?
better than a Dairy Queen
well if it is really primo-deluxe
some ol’ boy’s bound to lasso it online
then I’ll downslam it into my little black box
’sides there’s miles of porn on the rope
do we got some Dorritos?
Donny you’re pathetic
stimulated amateur pictures
ain’t even Playboy
I swear
you’re gonna catch a virus off that thing
or be arrested
put it on autopilot &
logon with me for a while
see if your password gets in
Donny
honey
I got a file that needs unzipped
if you wanna play with somethin’ better than your mouse
how big is your hard disk?
little darlin’ it’s the megabytes of ram
you want to nibble & byte
but not now
this hot tub has me half simmered
& I’m in the middle of downcookin’ an update from Bill
yeah that’s about all the date you can handle Donny
a dial-up connection for a chat room chat with Bill
God / he ain’t even real
it ain’t even a bar
it ain’t even TV
well
when you get ready
you can just play with your own floppy disk
or throw it at the dog
E-poem: thirty-three
hey Donny
ya e-mailed Walt Whitman one time
didn’t ya?
sort of / it was a class
yeah I’m in that class
ya know Walt coulda web-spun
or even been a systems administrator
he knew the wire was comin’ on:
have we not darken’d & dazed ourselves with books
long enough?
sounds like somebody’s got a termpaper to buy
yeah
"WWW: Whitman & the World Wire"
all these separations & gaps
shall be taken up & hook’d & link’d together
the seas inlaid with eloquent gentle wires
the earth to be spann’d
connected by network
slow moving & black lines go ceaselessly over the earth
with latest connections
see he knew about links & the net & even bots
well he ’magined ’em
kinda sci-fi virtual neural nets in the Oversoul
don’t mention sci-fi Lonny
English teachers hate sci-fi
couldn’t actually know html
he kinda guessed that some language
would make hyperlinks click & jump
probably knew Latin & hieroglyphics are junk
back then in the civil war Sanskrit was black-box
what do ya think Donny?
sound all right?
don’t know
if it was me
I’d probably jerk somethin’ off the string
that had already been tried & convicted
for a decent grade
know there’s a Walt chat
room?
been there
ain’t as dumb as I look on Web Cam TV
full of kids whimperin’ for help
wandering & confused
lost their self
(or maybe lost their mommies
or maybe forgot their passwords & lunch
or probably just peed their self)
ya can quote Walt for anythin’
rode over the Laramie plains
& then jumped to Hindustan
well he’d a like to
problem was he didn’t know no India urls
& there weren’t no search engines to haul folks
& nobody knew html
(little bit later Mohandas sent off to law school
where he learned to demand due process
or he won’t eat a byte)
shoot / the wire was so dumb
it just spewed dots & dashes
SOS / this is Morris Code
get me back to the future
you’re launchin’ off sci-fi again Lonny
tellin’ ya English teachers hate sci-fi
even Kurt Vonnegut
you’ll do better to keep Walt in a turban
than to make him write software
E-poem: thirty-four
hey Donny
heard you’re wire fraudin’
how’s that Lonny?
wish you’d tell me a way to
downdrop cash into my lap-pocket
everybody knows
net porn is a spigot for money Donny
if ya could get a gaggle of high school girls to cooperate
but I ain’t talkin’ ’bout that
I’m talkin’ ’bout ya illywhackin’ by wire
dressed Halloween pumpkin orangey
(teacher / why is there so much orange?)
(that’s a good question Oren
I think it’s because the leaves are turning)
bustin’ out of the chute a Mormon preacher
or some other school book geek
what sent e-mail that bounced
for 300 years
doubt that’s strictly possible Lonny
’xactly what I said / tain’t natural
weren’t no wire & even if they was
a e-mail that old woulda dribbled flat by now
entropized & echoed off like a dead bat
think you’re right Lonny
Al Gore says he plugged in the wire
just the other day
is that another dead poet Donny?
wish ya’d leave ’em at school slammed in a locker
know Mr. Cecil?
runs the grocery store in Thalia
(remember it ain’t Hy-Vee)
he useta be a English teacher
don’t know ’em Lonny
weren’t no Thalia Thistle tumblin’ in the wind
played my ball straight for the Calliope Cowbirds
fired his ass direct
for homasexyulizin’
more like for being a skinny runt in a bow-tie
who liked guacamole better ’n football
maybe
but he was a runt what read poetry
out loud
outta hardback books he got mailed in from Archer City
tellin’ ya Donny
natural men don’t read poems
specially don’t write ’em down
least ways not in Texas they don’t
maybe in Austin they let ’em get by with it at school
but not in panhandle Texas
good ya had the sense to pretend
to be a pilgrim or Robot Frost or such
& not give out your actual IP
thought when ya went online Lonny
everybody played R2D2
with a temporary name for doom murder & chat
& for flamin’ & roastin’ & fryin’ folks
who are also sportin’ temporary tags
like paintball wars without the paint
yeah but a lot of those is prebuilt
ya select standard modifications
like armor & more weapons
everybody knows the rules
& for them that don’t there’s help files
so what’s the rule for e-poems Donny?
gotta have a rule to make sense & play the game right
we never had e-poems in school & now it’s too late
ya should just stick with real video games
like down to Kwik-Sack & on-line
Donny Does E-mail is continued in the next issue of Amarillo Bay.