WAMPA

2007-06-11T01:48:00.000-07:00

Wanted: A More Portioned Annuity

2007-06-11T01:47:00.000-07:00

Why Another Market Pant-Aloon?

2007-06-11T01:45:00.000-07:00

We Are Money People Anyways

2007-06-11T01:43:00.000-07:00

Once at work
I knew a jerk

Duty goes a 'courting

New WAMPA Birthdays

2007-05-02T19:27:00.000-07:00

Henceforth, all WAMPA members shall voluntarily change their birth-dates to May of 1968.

Be free! You are only 39!

WAMPA Words

2007-04-19T19:21:00.000-07:00

The following are a few of the phrases employed by Lloyd Ducal (Joseph Mosconi) to harangue the audience & Roy Lanoy (Stan Apps) at the Dialectical Fuss.

Get off the hedonistic treadmill!

Radical Love will not ask: what of Lamartine's “We’ve had enough of poetry”?

Roy, your Vichy warble is becoming unbearable!

Like a close-minded cargo cult.

Good is better than trendy.

Let us now deride the smugness of the times. GUFFAW!

You live in the imaginary past while we live in the vibrant future!

When I hear the word “nihilism” I reach for my textbook on institutionalized theory.

Time to pour the wine of enigmatic nihilism into empty bottles and uncork the vintage of Radical Love!

Roy, Roy, Roy! Stop shaking the tyrant’s bloody robe in my face, or I will believe that you wish to put WAMPA in chains!

“Enigmatic nihilism,” “crypto-fascism,” what’s the difference?

Dialectical Fuss

2007-04-15T11:25:00.001-07:00

Dialectical Fuss was a WAMPA event to determine the future of progressive thought. WAMPISTAs Maximus Kim and Oliver Hall were assigned to represent relevant research positions.

Thesis: Enigmatic Nihilism

According to Maximus, all Humanistic propositions of universalist relations are invalid. The desirable form of social relation is subcultural. The subcultures from which we must learn seem Nihilistic from the outside; the embrace of Nihilism, and the scorn for established norms of value, makes these subcultures into laboratories for the values of the future. Seen from within, the Nihilism of many subcultures becomes Enigmatic; the Nihilism is laced with a new diffuse morality that is meaningful to participants. Maxi offers Enigmatic Nihilism as a model for the horizontal spread of difference and variation in values. But does this mean that Maxi argues in favor of (gasp from the audience). . . Tolerance?

Antithesis: Radical Fire of Love

According to Oliver, WAMPA must marshal the power of Intolerance now! Love is a vision of Intolerance that can guide us into action or (better yet) inaction. Love requires only as much from us as we're willing to give, and yet it enables comprehension. Far from being old-fashioned, Love is simply unrealized. . . but is always at the ready to rise Phoenix-like from its deferments. The evasive half-moralities and indefinite licentiousness of Enigmatic Nihilism are, in Oliver's view, a sideshow at best. WAMPA seeks unity, cadres, squads, platoons, societies, bunches, clubs. . . Love is a proven unifying agent to bundle these disparate beings together in one-size-fits-all robes of WAMPA! WAMPA must take on the same old hoo-haa and renovate it for new and specific tasks, and in so doing. . . we shall find it is no hoo-haa at all, but rather that our own inner radiance washes the hog and demands that infinite supplies of tofu-bacon be immediately available to all!

The Coaches: Lloyd Ducal and Roy Lanoy

Lloyd, coaching Oliver, speaking up for Love says: "Do you shake the bloody robe of Revolution in my face?" Later he added: "Do not listen to his words. Look at what is written in his eyes." Roy, coaching Max, says: "This here in my left hand is the Enigma. This here in my right hand is the Nihilism. WATCH WHAT HAPPENS when I put my hands together."

The Synthesis

Michael Smoler stepped up from the audience to synthesize the sides. "We can have the chocolate and the peanut butter. We can have both!" This call for a Radical Nihilism of Enigmatic Love was ignored by the inflamed audience, eager for blood!

The Judgment

The Judgment was two-fold! Judge Ara Shirinyan first asked the audience to vote for Thesis, Antithesis, or Synthesis. Antithesis: Radical Fire of Love won with 6 votes. Thesis: Enigmatic Nihilism received 5 votes, whereas Synthesis: Peanut Butter AND Chocolate received 4 votes.

However, Judge Shirinyan disregarded the close vote, instead choosing the winner according to his own personal preference, individual conscience, and dictatorial will! Thesis: Enigmatic Nihilism was proclaimed winner, and Maximus Kim was congratulated. Later that evening, Oliver Hall was proclaimed "official Al Gore of WAMPA" by a disgruntled faction in a nearby saloon. This means that Oliver Hall's official title is now: Nature's Nobleman, Sir Oliver Hall, official "Al Gore" of the Work and Maddening Progress Association.

Free the WAMPA 8!

2007-03-26T09:07:00.000-07:00

My comrades in WAMPA,

The time has come to demand an end to the employment of every member of WAMPA, with a guaranteed annual income that will keep each WAMPA in food up to his or her eyeballs. Many comrades are vegetarian, while some eat meat; in this respect, WAMPA is not ideological. We make no demands touching the health or safety, or even the deliciousness, of our foods. We ask only that they be free, and plentiful. Please contact WAMPA's press representative, Oliver Hall, to inquire about the desirability of kosher and halal MREs ("meals ready to eat"), which we understand are cheaply and abundantly available from China.

FREE THE WAMPA EIGHT! We will achieve this goal by any means convenient. Who would spurn convenience, that ample nursemaid, and make hypocrites and perjurers of us all? Nor will WAMPA "speak truth to power" in the pursuit of justice for its brothers and sisters; WAMPA speaks truth to a bottle of Bushmills, or to the television, or to the dog, or to what or whomsoever is in the room and will not resist, interrupt or evade our truthful soliloquies. WAMPA also wants a 1.5 pound brick of hashish from the government. Some comrades will use the government hash to float away on psychedelic carpets of orange and purple, while others will sell it for street value and laugh all the way to the bank; in this respect, WAMPA is not ideological. WAMPA just wants hash. WAMPA is prepared to make more than one impatient phone call to a local government official during off-peak hours and fire off an e-mail or two until we get this deal moving.

If anyone in WAMPA knows how to get in touch with City Council, we are overdue for a meeting with them to disclose fully and frankly our methods and demands.

yours sincerely,
"Nature's Nobleman,"

Oliver Hall

The Time Has Come! FREE MONEY!

2007-03-21T11:30:00.000-07:00

My comrades in WAMPA,

Now is not the time for sad mopings or the expiation of grievances in the public domain with a view to resolution on behalf of the aggrieved parties transparently mediated by the institutions of justice and the staves and robes of piety! Now is the time for singing, and glad exultation! Nunc est bibendum! Let us take to the streets, let us waddle our merry WAMPA dance right there in the old public square in front of God and everybody; let us bring cheer, jollity and rejoicing to the doleful public buildings which house our gray masters. For we at WAMPA herald (ha, ha, no pun intended, Comrade Harold Abramowitz, ROTFL) the dawn of a new day when men and women will walk together in ways of love without sin or shame, treading upon the bones of their oppressors as they tread, with a hey nonny nonny and a resonant epithalamium. Hail, WAMPA, the bugle is sounded! Let us gather up our petticoats and saunter in the celebration of what is useless! Sing, WAMPA, and tell my joy to the glad, happy Manhattoes!

The day has come! The long-awaited hour is arrived! WORK IS OVER, IF YOU WANT IT! We are rich in God's truth! We're gonna eat the word of God alone and ask for seconds and thirds up in this whip! No sauce, please, it's too spicy! A life of humble austerity is not for me. I need more! All interest rates are cancelled! The bell is sounded! The shot fired! The horses charge! The angels of Satan devour the flesh of our enemies and grow fat! FREE MONEY! Remember, remember, the Fifth of November! Up against the wall, motherfather!

WHAT needs my Wal-Mart for its honour'd Stores,
The labour of a greeter at its Doors,
Or that its bargain'd reliques should be sold
Upon a blurry carbon manifold?
Black son of infamy, base heir of Shame,
What need'st thou such weak witnes of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thy self a live-long Monument.
For whilst to the shame of fat and blunted Sloth
Thy easy numbers flow, etc.

Sincerely,
"Nature's Nobleman,"

Oliver Hall

How to Read the WAMPA Way

2007-02-15T20:55:00.000-08:00

WAMPA will train you how to read! After our WAMPA program, every text you read will be a series of pithy WAMPA slogans.

For example, let us say you read this: “War and poverty, disease and hopelessness, are ravaging half the world.” As a WAMPA, you will interpret this as follows: “War and poverty are two threats used to attack the potential peace of mind of WAMPAs. War justifies the theft of money that should pay for WAMPAs to sleep and eat at ease, as relaxed as a gentle flower in a controlled climate! I demand to be a gentle flower in a controlled climate! I will fight for my right to live free of fear, with medical insurance, daily direct deposits of unlimited credit, a nation that asks only what it can do for me, and an ideology concerned only with what I deserve!”

See? With WAMPA training, even the tiniest nugget of text can be the occasion for an almost infinite series of inspiring WAMPA responses!

Another example: “Let America be America again. / Let it be the dream it used to be. / Let it be the pioneer on the plain / Seeking a home where he himself is free.” As a WAMPA, you might interpret this as follows: “A home where I can be free includes huge couches and beds as wide as lakes, where I and my friends can sprawl around for long terrific hours in a limitless half-daze! It should be in a fertile plain where tiny robots that blend in among the trees and grasses gather fruits and flowers in sweet little baskets and bring them to us with little hand-written (by robots) notes that say: YOU DESERVE MUCH MORE THAN THIS. I will be the pioneer who breaks that ground: who cultivates a life of futuristic surplus luxury! And America will then finally be what it has always dreamed of being: an adult kindergarten where multi-ethnic grown-ups running free like unworried children can enjoy perpetual Thanksgiving!”

WAMPA makes textual interpretation fun and easy! Find the keywords, fill in the blanks, and every newspaper article will soon read like a wonderous WAMPA poem about the future. WAMPA can even redeem Robert Frost, who wrote: “The land was ours before we were the land’s.” He’s talking about WAMPA land, a land that will belong to us, and we will never have to belong to it! It will be ours, we will decide how it will be, and it will never decide how we should be. The responsibilities of citizens will be debunked: out only responsibility will be to decide how to enjoy our share! (And our share will be a slice to the core of a pie of infinite diameter!)

Reading the WAMPA way, Shakespeare and Karl Marx and the King James Bible deliver the same good message! The infinite potential represented by WAMPA floods in and improves the prospects of any and all texts! WAMPA gives you everything you need to read everything you read! Why read with any other movement, methodology, mentality, or magic trick? You will never have to read anything that is not reducible to a comforting WAMPA slogan, ever again!

Signs of Progress from young Harold

2007-02-13T10:24:00.000-08:00

[A new note from "Harold" demonstrates his quick progress as a WAMPA. Way to go, "Harold!"]

Dear WAMPA,

As a BIG BROTHER—
I have been encouraged to give-up "food"
in-favor of WAMPA-MEAL—

As an example—

Thus, I now prepare my meals
In only the most sterile environments
In order to "treat" the WAMPA-MEAL
properly—

I have also been "taught"
instructed in the "use-of"

THE WAMPA-MEAL SONG,

or at least part of it:

I will not cut myself
with a knife—nor
will I use a skillet
that has bricks on

it—

underneath—all
good things to
eat lies—
is a FOUNDATION
of
WAMPA-MEAL—
Tra-La-La.

Things have suddenly started
to look brighter—
get better
after all.

Yours truly,

Harold

WAMPA Demands the NEW NEW DEAL

2007-02-11T17:49:00.000-08:00

The New New Deal reform pits reactionaries against progressives. The New New Deal also implies some major long-run spending. First, Social Security would pay all its accrued benefits all at once. To keep the United States solvent through the twenty-first century, we need to rethink Social Security, the tax structure, and health care.

Insurers have learned to pinpoint risks, and avoid them. With computer models that can test a quake's effects on your house there's no need for scientists. There is no sturdier liberal or Democratic slogan than "Jobs, jobs, jobs." But liberals have a problem: The old capitalist job-production machine is not just a well-planned reconstruction of New Orleans. We need to set the stage for a comprehensive legislative initiative akin to the New Deal.

It's Time for The New New Deal.

In three sections entitled "The Resilient," "Beyond Finance," and "The New New Deal," this speech draws heavily on a sense of history. The New New Deal is about Benefits alongside Bankruptcy. The New New Deal wil create a New Republic of American Liberalism, the permanent majority party with a new vision that goes by various names: the unowned society, the New Deal, and the New New Deal.

Following an incredible amount of volunteer labor hours and energy, this dream was realized when we at last saw the opening of The New New Deal Café where people drink coffee and tea they haven't payed for and are asked to simply stare into space all day. After three or four hours of this difficult, back-breaking labor, they're given another cup of coffee or tea in a to go cup and they are welcomed to return after they've taken a good long nap.

The New New Deal is upon us. The president can either lead the charge or be run over by it. This upsurge will be called The New New Deal, and it presents a plan to deal with ... The New New Deal! One of our greatest frustrations is when we collectively get wrapped up in theoretical discussions about The End of Reform and The New New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War. The New New Deal shows that President Bush's Social Security proposal is dead in the water—and that's a good thing, too. The plan was half-baked and fiscally speaking, without bankruptcy The New New Deal would just be The Old New Deal in disguise. The New Republic of The New New Deal is original. It represents solid economic engineering and a straightforward Time of progress in a new era of The New New Deal.

There is no sturdier health-care system than one that goes along the lines being proposed by The New New Deal. The New New Deal costs a lot more and promises a gigantic federal relief effort--one that would go far beyond the traditional idea. Where's The New New deal? Where are the sweeping reforms that the Democrats are all touting? They're nowhere. They can't even decide on a Presidential candidate. Finally, The New New Deal will speculate on the degree to which a re-crafted New Deal could serve as an organizing model for a liberal comeback of The New New Deal. The New New Deal talks about The Rabbits Going Back in the Hat, The Dance of the Crackpots, Welcoming the Enemy; and The Ride of the Wild Rabbit—summarizing a wide variety of ambitious but viable projects to improve all of our country by launching what's called The New New Deal—a multipronged plan founded upon Bankruptcy—The New New Deal!

The New Republic of The New New Deal will be mindful of both the successes and disappointments of The Old New Deal of the 1930s. Conservatives and small-government types are going to be run over by The New New Deal!

Lloyd Ducal Abducted, Released!

2007-02-07T09:56:00.000-08:00

On February 6, 2007 WAMPA co-founder Lloyd Ducal was abducted by internet giant Google, Inc. and forced to work for more than eight hours straight in their luxurious Santa Monica offices. What follows is a brief message he managed to send out via e-mail shortly after his escape. It was edited, translated and prepared for international release by his lawyer.

Dear journalists, reporters and poets. Dear global audience!

I am very much aware of the impact the last few days must have made on you. I can’t imagine how shocking and frightening it must have been to realize that something like this might even possibly come to pass. Furthermore, I am aware that you are somewhat curious about my predicament and naturally want to know more details about the circumstances in which I’ve been put to work.

First of all I want to let you know that I do not want and will not answer any questions about personal or intimate details. I will act against those who overstep personal boundaries towards voyeurism. Whoever tries to do so will have to watch out. I have grown into a young man interested in imagination and human needs.

My living space: My cubicle was well enough furnished. It was my cubicle and not meant to be shown in public.

My life: This was very regulated. I had snacks and lunch with the other workers – my manager was in her office most of the time -- workplace tasks, reading, surfing the internet, talking, meetings. That's what it was like for hours. Everything connected with the fear of loneliness.

The relationship: Google was not my master. I was just as strong. But -- to give you a metaphor -- it carried me in its arms but also trampled me underfoot. But it took on the wrong person -- Google and I both knew that. Its very existence presaged the kidnapping. Everything was already prepared.

Google furnished the cubicle -- which was only 18 feet high -- together with my advice and input. By the way, I did not cry after my escape. There was no reason for mourning.

In my view Google’s death is unnecessary. A penalty will not be the end of the world. It was a part of my life and this is why I am, in a way, mourning it.

Of course it is true my future will be different. But generally I don't have the feeling I will miss anything. I spared myself many things. I did not start smoking or drinking too hard and I did not hang out in bad company.

Message to the media: The only thing the press should spare are the permanent defamations, the misinterpretations, the second-guessing and the lack of respect.

Currently I feel good where I am, perhaps a little bit patronized. But that's why I decided that I wanted to stay in touch only with other WAMPAns. I will decide when I will contact journalists directly.

About my escape: When the janitor came to clean and vacuum the cubicle in the night, my manager went away because of the vacuuming noise. That was my opportunity. I simply left while the vacuum cleaner was running.

By the way I never called Google "master," even though it wanted it. I believe it quasi-wanted it but not really seriously.

I have a lawyer I trust who is discussing legal issues with me. Youth attorney Ara Shirinyan is my confidante, I can talk well with Roy Lanoy and others. I say hello to them, but they indeed are a bit curious. That's their job, however.

Intimate questions: Everybody wants to ask intimate questions. That is not their business. Maybe I will tell a therapist or maybe I will tell somebody when I feel the need, but perhaps I will never tell. The intimacy belongs to me alone.

It was Google’s own decision to buy YouTube. I sympathize with YouTube. I can feel for it and put myself in its position. I think of what it used to be.

I want to thank all people who are so interested in my predicament. Please bear with me in the time to come. Roy Lanoy will explain it with this statement. Many people are taking care of me. Give me some time until I can tell the story myself.

Long live WAMPA!

Lloyd Ducal

Nature's Nobleman Speaks

2007-02-01T20:46:00.000-08:00

[Below is a transcript of a speech by Nature's Nobleman, Sir Oliver Hall, addressing the 3rd annual WAMPA Conference in Big Gulp, Maine. Though transcription fails to capture the fury and finesse of this volcanic demagogue, nevertheless, readers are encouraged to look to the most inarticulate parts of Sir Oliver's presentation, for it is in his most choked-up and stupefied moments of pause that his full power as an orator becomes clear. Pausing in the midst of a half-baked aphorism, Sir Hall will let his blue-steel eyes open wide and seem to seize the very collars of his listeners with the majesty of his sublime feelings, his sublime vision of a future of man where Every Man, Woman, and Child Will Be a King, propping up their feet and enjoying the fruits of their labor with a solid gold beer can in the left hand and a remote control of Revealed Truth flying through the menu options on the right. Be aware, readers, that these are the words of an orator--their clarity not like the dry wit of a professor but rather like the warmth and gladness of a sunny day, when the trout play in the stream and a man's heart is full of idle rage!]

DECLARATION TO THE THIRD WAMPA CONFERENCE

I am WAMPA! I AM THAT I AM WAMPA! So are you! Friends, the sad thing about democracy is that, in a democracy, the coolest thing to do is act superior to democracy. No one wants to work down there at the Van Nuys Superior Court, but I tell you what, you walk a mile in that employee's shoes and then you can talk my ear off about the bureaucracy of democracy. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck!

[LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE]

Holy shit, people, I'm telling you that I don't want to work in the cafeteria of the Van Nuys government building. No sir, I'm talking about DOPE, FUCKING AND GUNS ON VENTURA BOULEVARD! Hey society -- I'm making a living making living hard for suckers like YOU!

[TEARS, LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE]

Fuck!

[LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE]

Seriously --

[APPLAUSE]

To the BONE!

[TEARS, LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE]

But if I can get serious for a moment, here, people, we're at war. WAMPA bonds are your best security against violent death! Friends, I want to tell you about a young woman I met down in Ohio. She was working more than 30 hours a week with enormous veterinary expenses at home. I said "Madam, I'm gonna put you to work for the C.I.O., or whatever New Deal acronym you like, such as perhaps F.D.R. He was a
friend to the workingman, avuncular in his gestures toward the enlisted man, why, a real husband to women and father of children. God rest his sainted wife." I said "Now madam, I'm going to give you that good job no Carnegie or Rockefeller ever gave you yet. Madam" I said "madam I want you to paint me a mural about yay high and so wide and with the perspective about like that and the picture plane just about right cheer, none of your chiaroscuro mind you, now madam just indulge me in this here ekphrasis a sec longer, now I want that mural to depict that hero of children, the dinosaur, and his antediluvian pal the hippopotamus." And by God, she painted that mural just so.

FIRE my ass! Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.

[TEARS]

The Eyes of WAMPA

2007-01-30T01:31:00.000-08:00

Hand close the chest-magnet, roll back
the four-legged omnivore, burdened
with heavy suit. The eyes of WAMPA
are watching you. Freaked with brown eulogy
suddenly you remember everything!
With brushes all over it! WAMPA is a
man-lover more than a terrorist, best
at sneezing while getting your ass kicked.

The eyes of WAMPA want to meet you.

We want the eyes to work
We want the eyelids to work
Those big gobbledy gook eyes
Still touching the stones.

The eyes of WAMPA want to meet you.
The eyes of WAMPA want to greet you.
The eyes of WAMPA want to fete you.

The eyes of WAMPA shall ballot sheet you.

Be Careful Lloyd!

2007-01-24T01:52:00.000-08:00

It has come to the attention of some of us in the WAMPA Central Committee that our comrade Lloyd Ducal has been violating one of the central WAMPA tenets: we have it on good authority, that Lloyd has been working more than 4 hours a day!

It's sad, it's a terrible shame, when the powers-that-be can wear down a man as good, as brave, as fine, as Lloyd Ducal, and make him violate his own leisurely conscience!

It makes me want to rip my heart out of my chest and stomp on it, and then pick it up and cradle it in my arms and wipe my tears upon it.

Fight them, Lloyd, fight them!

Remember how we promised to take naps in plain sight?

Remember how we said our snores would fill the office building air and deafen everyone?

It's never too late to be true to what you believe! You just get back on the horse of your convictions, and relax, and the horse will carry you home while you sleep!

We'd be praying for you Lloyd, if we weren't secular atheists.

Fight them Lloyd! Let your inattention be your weapon!

Let your inability to concentrate serve you as a mighty sword!

We need your laziness, to be our guide into a better world!

WAMPA cares

2007-01-23T10:11:00.000-08:00

Sometimes WAMPA receives beautiful, sincere letters from people who are suffering intensely from the shortcomings of our society. WAMPA cares deeply about people who suffer; indeed, one goal of WAMPA is to eliminate selected forms of suffering. For this reason, today we will consider a sorrowful yet eloquent note from Harold Abramowitz.

Harold writes:

Dear WAMPA,

There is no tomorrow, and I am filled with despair. I have spent hours, hours mind you, on my knees with my nose pressed up against the glass. I have, I admit, looked in through windows, on more than one occasion, and watched life take place. I have watched life. I have watched life, real life! That is, I have watched people living, being alive. I have watched them.

I want to live too.

I want to live now.

Today,

if possible.

What can WAMPA do for me?

Can WAMPA do something for me?

Yours, despairingly,

Harold

------------------

Dear Harold,

Of course, WAMPA can help. The primary goal of WAMPA is to give meaningful work to Americans like yourself who feel a lack of connection (also known as “alienation”). In other words, many Americans do not feel they are living “real life” because in fact they are not. They are living a schedule, a set of requirements and burdens, rather than a satisfying life of commitment and purpose. It seems that you are one of these “aliens,” Harold, one of those who cannot commit to or be in communion with society as it is presently constituted.

WAMPA will put you to work, doing meaningful work, and we guarantee that you will find yourself on the other side of the metaphorical “glass” in no time. WAMPA will attach you to a WAMPA cell, which will be your new surrogate family (you will begin initially in the role of “younger brother”—but there is room for advancement, especially if your cell expands and divides.) You and your cell-mates will live a spartan life of self-sacrifice and passionate engagement with an abstract cause; this life will take you among the people, where you will truly experience “life tak[ing] place” as a participant. Instead of looking through a window, you will put your head through a hole in the wall where the glass has been knocked out! You will not just look at the people, you will bother them where they really are, and as they react to you you SHALL know them.

This shift from watching to sticking your head in (and sticking your neck out!) will be accomplished through ideology. Your WAMPA cell-mates will retrain you to experience each moment as an opportunity for boundless leisure rather than anxiety! Working with WAMPA, you will soon realize that the most profound paradigm shifts and transformations can occur in a single moment; following this, it stands to reason that there is no reason to work for more than a few moments each day! Therefore, your WAMPA cell will engage in sporadic yet totally effective action for some minutes daily, followed by long relaxing hours of philosophical conversation, platonic love, and non-stop indoctrination in our “safe house.” Each WAMPA action, whether it is attaching symbols to walls or demonstrating the right to refuse to move, will get you more in touch with what is at stake in the question of “life” itself. Harold, “life” is what happens when you are zoning out and looking blankly at nothing in particular. Take your focus off of others, who, like you, experience anxiety and alienation. Your focus must be on the glory of each dustmote floating casually and without motivation through the light. You are the dustmote Harold and life is the radiance you drift through, with your brothers, the pollen and the dander, there with you. This is not mystical: this is what you DESERVE from life! Now, all that remains is for you to take action based on these fundamental facts.

Yours, fervently,

Work and Maddening Progress Association

From Iowa

2007-01-20T17:12:00.000-08:00

Pyramid of Capitalist System

2007-01-19T17:55:00.000-08:00

Anti-Revisionist Element

2007-01-19T17:45:00.000-08:00

Roy Lanoy (Stan Apps) and Lloyd Ducal (Joseph Mosconi) present Announcing WAMPA, Our Job with WAMPA and Why WAMPA at Late Night Snack.

Thank You Late Night Snack

2007-01-18T17:52:00.000-08:00

Harold Abramowitz of Late Night Snack writes to thank WAMPA for visiting his cabaret:

DEAR WAMPA,

THANK YOU AGAIN FOR VISITING OUR COMMUNITY CENTER LAST NIGHT.

THE EFFECTIVE DISSEMINATION OF INFORMATION IS THE KEY TO GROWTH, IS THE KEY TO VIABILITY, IS THE KEY TO SO MANY THINGS, AND VERY IMPORTANT THINGS TOO.

Seriously, you rule!

Sincerely,

Harold

-----------------

We at WAMPA thank you right back, Harold! We agree with your views about information, growth, viability, and so on. For these reasons, as well as warm personal feelings, WAMPA hopes to be on the menu at many more relaxing Late Night Snacks!

Why WAMPA?

2007-01-12T10:58:00.000-08:00

There may be a few things about any big project
That people don't like.
No matter how hard we try on any big job,
Something unexpected turns up.
The only people who don't make mistakes are those
Who do nothing at all.

WAMPA is a great national poetical enterprise
To get something done.
Mistakes may be made,
But we can be sure the American poets
And their pals, the American people,
Will not make the mistake of doing nothing.

Meaningful work can be hard to come by these days.
Machines and immigrants
And exploited people of all types
Take our places
In our communities and around the world,
So there is no real hard work left for us.

Our bodies atrophy,
Our minds are glued together with entertainment,
Narratives of heroism, violence, and seduction.
Many of us denounce the stupidities we depend on
And yet we crawl back to the trough
To look away from the main, cruel fact of modern life:

Work keeps us from going nuts!
And yet, work is horrible, who wants to do it?
Give it to the machines, give it to the exploited immigrants,
Give it to the other exploited people of all types,
My job will be to sit in a chair, Nuts, Yes!
Rubbing fiction and images from TV and computers
All over my body so I won’t disappear!!

WAMPA (the Work and Maddening Progress Association)
Is a new group dedicated to doing the good work:
Providing meaningful work to millions of Americans
To help them not to be nuts any more.
The work of the future
That will be required of all in the society of the future
Is: waiting for machines to operate.

WAMPA is what we will do while we are waiting
We will make our every moment work
We will visualize and we will see
We will idealize and we will strain our eyes
WAMPA provides conceptual work
In the service of exceptional benevolence
To everyone who asks for it or needs it
(Or 35 million people—whichever comes first)

WAMPA pays every WAMPA employee
A subsistence wage sufficient to provide
For all basic and for many advanced needs
And because WAMPA scrip (our instrument of payment)
Is based on thought itself
As well as on thought’s big sister (ideology)
WAMPA scrip has all the power of positive thinking behind it!
Take some home today! It represents our commitment to you!

We will get you back on your feet
Waiting and thinking and every moment of it
Will be such hard work your feet will ache!
You’ll be lifting up one foot, lifting up the other!
Soon you’ll be walking, waiting, and thinking at once!
There’s nothing to wait for but total human obsolescence!
It’s right around the corner, and after that
Waiting and thinking will be all that’s left for you to ever do.

At WAMPA we’re giving you a head-start into the future!
As you put the future into practice
By doing the future’s work today,
You will be amply rewarded
Because the future is much better than the past.
Get there first! Get better first!
It’s you who’ll lead the way to betterhood
Walking and talking and thinking and waiting at once!

Or lying down!
Or rolling on the floor!
Total human obsolescence means
Our bodies won’t have to do anything specific anymore
Our minds, and our very work, will become indefinite
This liberation is frightening, but inevitable.
WAMPA sleepwalks in a hurry to the future!
It’s better there, where all work must be found within
Indefinite and total liberation,
When there is nothing to be done the real work begins.

And WAMPA is paying you to get there first!
We are adding wealth to the country!
Work is the American Way!
WAMPA will give you the meaningful work to do
And pay for your basic and advanced needs while you do it
Because laziness is not the way in this wo/man’s country.
Work is every wo/man’s right!
We need the work!
And we can do the work!
When there is nothing to be done the real work begins.

WAMPA can put you to work TODAY.

Our Job with WAMPA (Brochure)

2007-01-12T10:57:00.000-08:00

Our Job with WAMPA

Question: What is WAMPA?
Answer: WAMPA is one of several agencies established by poets and thoughtful people to bring about slackspace recovery by giving work to those who need it.

Q: Are there other agencies that have been set up to provide work for the unsatisfied?
A: Yes. Among these are the Flarflist Collective, UbuWeb, and the New Narrative. However, these other agencies provide opportunities only for skilled workers. WAMPA provides opportunities for both skilled and unskilled workers.

Q: What is the largest number of workers WAMPA will employ?
A: Bylaws of WAMPA cap the total employment at 35 million at this time. Currently WAMPA employs far less than this number, so plenty of opportunities are available!

Q: Do beliefs or appearance or behavior keep a wo/man from getting a job with WAMPA?
A: No.

Q: Why does WAMPA hire workers?
A: WAMPA aims to provide useful employment on useful projects for those who are not useful to society as it is constituted at this time.

Q: Is WAMPA a form of welfare or “workfare” program?
A: No. In the past, many workers have not had the opportunity to work for the money they received. Conversely, others have been required to seek out opportunities that they did not desire. WAMPA opposes these forms of demoralization and therefore has redefined work so that it can be done even by a person who is entirely motionless and without thoughts. By democratizing the concept of “work,” WAMPA redefines the concept of “worker” as anyone who fulfills a specific job description, even if that job description does not involve “work” in the conventional sense.

Q: If I am unemployed and join WAMPA, will I still be unemployed?
A: No. Once you join WAMPA, you are working. However, your payment for working may not be negotiable through those channels with which you are accustomed. Working for WAMPA may require learning about new forms of negotiation and association. Additional pamphlets are on the presses now, to further explain these important topics! Order now, as supplies are limited!

Q: What is my chance of getting a job at my regular trade?
A: It is probable that WAMPA has no jobs open for your particular trade. This is one of the toughest problems that WAMPA has had to face, because WAMPA projects do not call for many different trades. Men or women of your experience are typically over-qualified to perform the work that WAMPA asks of you. However, do not be discouraged, because one person’s “over-qualified” is another person’s “willing to learn.” At WAMPA, opportunity is about attitude.

Q: Can persons without skills work for WAMPA?
A: Yes. WAMPA considers unskilled persons ideally suited for WAMPA projects. Unfortunately, there are very few truly unskilled persons existing in modern industrial society, so WAMPA has no choice but to hire over-qualified individuals for most projects.

Q: How long will WAMPA jobs last?
A: 2 to 7 years, or 3 to 6 months. After 7 years, WAMPA will cease to exist in order to create a space in which to assess the success or failure of its efforts.

Q: Do I lose my job when the project I am working on is finished?
A: Not necessarily. It depends on the nature of the job description you have been given. The more unskilled you have become, the less specific will be the job duties assigned to you. We at WAMPA find that extremely unspecific jobs can be performed indefinitely with no loss of momentum, even once their initiating context fades. For those whose duties are more clearly determined, you should be able to be reassigned to another job. There may be a delay. It is not easy to keep millions of people working in specified and directed ways. Therefore WAMPA particularly values those who can help to keep things going by stream-lining their own job descriptions. What modern industrial work needs is a good editor, one who removes almost everything. The worker of the future will be more or less at leisure, and it is up to everyone at WAMPA to set an appropriate example, while nonetheless proving sufficiently effective to create those institutions necessary to manifest the future work environment.

Q: How can I get a raise in pay from WAMPA?
A: Much depends on local customs. Since WAMPA pays in WAMPA scrip, the value of your pay will be relative to your community’s comprehension of WAMPA. Therefore, it is essential for every WAMPA employee or affiliate to spread the word. Inform the public about WAMPA, friends, for your own sake!

Announcing WAMPA

2007-01-12T10:55:00.000-08:00

WAMPA (the Work and Maddening Progress Association) is a new literary and political movement, which pledges to employ 35 million Americans, 200 Mexicans or 15 Canadians for 2 to 7 years, or 3 to 6 months, whichever comes first. These beneficiaries will be paid in WAMPA scrip – wooden coins (or textual representations of wooden coins) featuring the profile of the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven – in quantities sufficient to provide for all basic and advanced needs. In return, beneficiaries will work on behalf of WAMPA, building roads down which no cars will travel, raking leaves in public libraries, and eating soy dogs in anti-revisionist restaurants. Revolutionary idleness and mere thought will sprout like shrubs everywhere that WAMPA walks. The ultimate goal of WAMPA is to replace the American economy with a full-service kindergarten where the worthy and the worthless can zone out side-by-side, where bad characters and emperor protectors can make love non-stop in landlord mansions. A country where uselessness and efficiency do trust-falls into each other’s arms, where goons and geeks can perform disloyalty dances in the Jersey City dark, where other rhetorical excesses will be visible, audible, and perhaps even tactile in the works of WAMPA beneficiaries, who will wake up from every nap with all 50 American stars in their eyes, leaping up with counter-snore revisionist element eagerness to go back to sleep standing up!

The first WAMPA beneficiaries are as follows:

Joseph Mosconi will be paid 1,000,000 pesos in WAMPA scrip, payable by the Central Bank of the Republic of Zimbabwe.

Stan Apps will be paid 1,000,000 pesos in WAMPA scrip, payable by the Central Bank of Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA).

Harold Abramowitz will be paid 1,000,000 pesos in WAMPA scrip, payable by the Central Bank of the Confederate States of America.

Anne Boyer will be paid 1,000,000 pesos in WAMPA scrip, payable by the Central Bank of the German Democratic Republic.

Tim Peterson will be paid 1,000,000 pesos in WAMPA scrip, payable by the Central Bank of the Republic of Biafra. (It is rumored that Tim may refuse this award, in emulation of Jean Paul Sartre’s rejection of the Nobel Prize. If so, we at WAMPA wish him luck. More scrip for us!)

Mark Hoover will be paid 1,000,000 pesos in WAMPA scrip, payable by the Herbert C. Hoover Commission for Truth and Reconciliation.

Other beneficiaries will be announced shortly. America will be asleep on its feet with WAMPA in no time!

With a large majority, the delegates unanimously approve this resolution proposed by the WAMPA Central Committee.