For almost four months now, simpleton has provided a smorgasbord of comment,
parody, cartoons and wholesome goodness. You who have enjoyed it all on a daily basis,
at no additional cost, must agree that we deserve a rest. And now we're taking it. And
best of all, you still get to enjoy a variety of compelling content!
While we're out, our artificial intelligence
program will use time saving tricks to provide you,
our valued readers, with new content. Some issues will be abbreviated, some will be
ghost-written,
and some, like today's,
will make use of the many works which Calzone has produced in licensing arrangements with
other publications. Just "click" on the
"hyperlinks" below, and you'll be magically whisked away to other "web sites," to savor
some of simpleton's paid and unpaid work.
Other writers might take an opportunity like this to trot out their "best of" material.
Self-infatuated popinjays! Sure we could show you simpleton at its best - reasonably
consistent, mildly amusing, none too
challenging, and with a sort of Al Rokerish inoffensiveness. But between Christmas'
uncanny good cheer and the debaucheries of New Year's Eve - that most dismal of
holidays - we see an opportunity to clear out all our worst. So hold your nose and click!
H. Peabody Briggs
Chief Executive Officer
Calzone
1) Virgin Prune: An essay on Richard Branson
You'd think a target as big as Richard Branson would be ripe for merciless mockery. I
thought so too, but boy was I wrong! Far from the comedy-writing-itself yuckfest I expected,
this article turned out to be as funny as cancer. When
it came out, one "fan" wrote me to say it was "the most uninteresting, unexciting Suck ever"
- a bald-faced exaggeration (there were worse Sucks both before and after this piece),
but there was nothing I could say in my own defense. This thing stinks on ice:
See for yourself.
2) Hard Crime: An interactive boondoggle
Hard Crime is an excellent interactive novel - possibly the best of its kind. That is
to say, like all interactive fiction, it's utterly unreadable. If John Updike and his army
of online gold prospectors couldn't make a decent piece of writing, it's safe to say the
daisy chain tale is a hopeless endeavor. However, witty contributions by several simpleton
contributors and an excellent layout by Cameron make this one
worth a look. Read Hard Crime
and join the march of folly. You might even want to add your own chapter!
3) Rock criticism: Need we say more?
There's a moment in every whore's life when some last piece of
squeamishness is squashed. It might be a perverse activity that disgusts you, a position
you vowed
never to assume, or a person you vowed never to assume it with. But of course, if you
kept your vows you wouldn't be a whore; we march toward professional meretricity to
a drumbeat of cast-off inhibitions.
My personal back-door taboo was music journalism. The meaningless opinions, the feeble
efforts to shine shit, the absolute, crushing disposability of it all: Never, I said, Never!
But when I finally caved in, it felt oddly liberating - a release from the shame, the
pride, the worries about whether I was that kind of girl. These are actually pretty good music
reviews (no impressionism, no discussion of the lyrics and no comparisons to other bands); and
I've been rewarded for my efforts with a chance to review Spiceworld in an upcoming
issue! So join me as I fall from grace:
Grateful
Dead At the Fillmore East
Modest
Mouse Lonesome Crowded West
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