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     | |      c   o   m   m   u   n   i   c   a   t   i   o   n   s     | |
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  ...presents...         Reid Fleming: Lady Killer
                                                         by Reid Fleming
                                                         09/01/1997-#337

             __///////\ -cDc- CULT OF THE DEAD COW -cDc- /\\\\\\\__
               \\\\\\\/  Everything You Need Since 1986  \///////
  ___    _   _    ___     _   _    ___       _   _      ___    _   _      ___
 |___heal_the_sick___raise_the_dead___cleanse_the_lepers___cast_out_demons___|


I wrote this thing in September of 1994.  My life has changed considerably
since then.

  I no longer work for a multimedia software publisher.
  I am pierced.
  And, thanks to the cDc, the money & girlies have poured in.

But way back then, when I was desperate for human female companionship, a
personal ad in the local weekly seemed appropriate.  The following is an
account of one of the dates generated by my ad.

  _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

I placed a personal ad in the paper a few weeks ago:

"SWM, 25, seeks HIV- 20ish mentally agile borderline alcoholic, profane, and 
likes books and comix.  OPTIONAL LIKES: MST3k, L7, Xuxa, Janeane Garofalo.  No 
goths or veggies."

This is my outgoing voicemail message at the newspaper's personals VMB:

    Hi, my name is Reid.
    Let me explain myself a little bit: I'm a flabby 25 year-old U.S. citizen 
with full-time gainful employment at a software company.  I read _Wired_
magazine, _Scientific American_, and _Film Threat_ on a regular basis, and then
whatever comes across my purview.
    My favorite authors are Neal Stephenson, Charles Bukowski, Thomas Pynchon, 
Marvin Mudrick, David Hume, and David Mamet.  I just finished a book called 
_Friday Night Lights_ about high school football in Odessa, Texas.  It's 
amazing.
    My favorite filmmakers include Stanley Kubrick, John Sayles, John Woo, Jane 
Campion, and David Mamet again.  I just saw Romeo Is Bleeding, Natural Born 
Killers, and Colossus: The Forbin Project.
    On TV, I like to watch the Secret Life of Machines, Nova, Talk Soup, Kids in
the Hall, MST3k, Absolutely Fabulous, The Simpsons, Duckman, TV O, and Larry 
Sanders whenever possible (although I don't pay for HBO).  I'm looking forward 
to Saturday Night Live's new season if Janeane Garofalo's really on it with 
those two Kids in the Hall members, but we'll see if that happens.
    In the comics world, I like to read Alan Moore's stuff, Eddie Campbell, 
Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman, whatever.
    I'm more or less looking for somebody who's really smart, if possible.  Not 
necessarily genius, but just somebody who's sharp, and who doesn't buy into all 
the cultural stereotypes that are expected of us.  I don't mean that I'm looking
for somebody who's necessarily covered with tattoos or anything, but just 
somebody who doesn't buy into all the bullshit.
    Anyway, I'm a sucker for nose rings.  Although not septum rings.  They look 
too much... bovine to me.
    (ironically) This is going quite well...  Anyway, just leave your name and 
number, or address or something, and we could do something.  Thanks.

  _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

FROM COMPANY E-MAIL

Subject: Reid's personal ads bears fruit immediately!
From:    Reid Fleming
Date:    9/8/94  9:48 AM

[I received this message in my voice-mail]

    Hi, my name is Amity, Reid.  And I have to admit: between the message in the
paper and the message on your voicemail... it's pretty interesting.  Well, you 
want intellect but no septum ring.  I think you're being a little cheesy.  
You're in Slackerville, USA, otherwise known as San Francisco.
    Okay, my name, like I said, is Amity.  I'm 25.  I'm a 5' 8", 125 pound 
model, and have my own multimedia CD-ROM erotica company.  I'm into psychotropic
research.
    I'm into (magazine-wise) _Ben Is Dead_, _Wired_, _New Media_, and, you know,
the like... _Boing Boing_.  As far as comics are concerned, I like, you know,
_Love & Rockets_, _Tank Girl_, that king of thing.
    As far as TV shows, well, if it's on Nickelodeon, if it's on MTV, if it's on
the Comedy Channel, if it's on... what else is there?  Okay, there's Nick, MTV,
the Comedy Channel, the Sci-Fi Channel.  I think that generally covers it. 
Fox.  Fox is pretty good, too, as long as we're going into TV Land.
    What else?  Directors?  I like whoever directed La Femme Nikita and Betty 
Blue.  I'm not good with names.  And, of course, the guy who directed 
Videodrome.
    Like I said, I was pretty bowled-over by both the ads.  One problem: even 
though I fit everything, right down to Janeane Garofalo, I am a vegetarian.  Not
a soapboxer, but I am a vegetarian.  That's it.  Chill.


This message left at 7:43am on September 8th

  _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

RESPONSES FROM CO-WORKERS

She sounds pretty cool. I strongly believe blatant honesty is the best way to 
start any relationship/acquaintance-ship. (Bovine is _the_ word!)
-Kat


Go Reid!
-Lis


Any chance of getting one of her demo CDs?
-Chris


I wonder if she's in those interactive erotica CD-ROMs... I suppose she would 
be.  If nothing else, I plan to trade her a bunch of ours.
-Reid


Since when do WE do interactive erotica? Mario Early Years Fun with Uncle 
Irving? San Diego Zoo Presents the Breeding Practices of Homo Sapiens?
-Kat

  _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

Here's the real meat:

REID'S DATE WITH AMITY

    Well, here I am at the Squat & Gobble, sitting at the same table where Dean 
& Jennifer & I ate that one day.  I guess it's about 10 till 11, so I'm early.  
I'm so nervous that it bothers me.  I'm sweating.  Visibly.  Not Albert Brooks 
style, but my forehead is slick and stays that way.  My glasses will be coming 
off soon, involuntarily.

    I half expect Amity to show up and then ditch me.  It would be easy to stand
me up.  Even though I have her phone number, she's moving soon and always lets 
the machine answer.  Besides, she knows what t-shirt I'm wearing ("Marine 
Sniper") and I can't really identify her unless she comes and strikes up a 
conversation.

    Three minutes later, she comes up to me.  She is about half as attractive as
I'd imagined, silly me.  More from my notes:

    She came up to me in the Squat & Gobble and asked if I believe in the 
paranormal.  Because she had had a premonition that I would physically remind 
her of the guy in her band, which apparently I do.

    We go to a park about 3 blocks away and sat under a tree.  We sit down under
the shady tree and she pulls items out of her black rubber purse for her to 
offer me.

    "Gum?"
    "No, thank you."
    "Ricola?"
    "I'm fine."
    "Certs?"
    "OK."
    "'He took the Certs...'"

    Later:

    "Cigarette?"
    "I'm cool."
    "Acid?"
    "No, thanks."
    I didn't tell her that I haven't done drugs for four years.  I didn't want 
to scare her off, necessarily.  Although I spent a lot of time looking at the 
veins in her arms and what looked like bruises on her forearm.  Maybe they're 
three-week-old needle divots.  Maybe they're just some weird physiological 
thing.  Lord knows my body has its weird spots.

    "What's that?" I ask, pointing to what looks like a partly washed-off hand 
stamp that's on her wrist.
    "It's a tattoo.  Me and my EX-boyfriend made it.  I made the green cloudy 
part and he made the defined blue dot in the center."
    "Did you guys use a needle?"
    "Yeah, a needle, thread, and India ink.  He has these all over his arms.  I 
just have this one.  I'm thinking about making it into a atom symbol; kind of 
fitting.  But the thought of getting a real tattoo sort of scares me."
    "And they're expensive."
    "Well... yeah."

    She grew up in New York State, about 50 miles north of NYC.  She was raised 
vegetarian and still practices it.
    She has worked as a pastry chef, receptionist, answering service operator, 
assembler at The Perfect Cookie, model, and stripper for 2 months at a club in 
SF called The Market Street Theater.  She is currently unemployed.
    Both of us, coincidentally, have worked for photo developers.  Both of us 
were fired from our respective photo developer jobs.  Both of us were fired for 
having a bad attitude.

    The conversation somehow turns to body piercings.  "I'm really pierced," she
says.  None of them are exposed to sunlight, apparently.  "I got my belly
button pierced, my nipple pierced, my hood and my one on each of my inner lips. 
I want three on each lip."
    "Did they hurt?"
    "Not the lips.  Not really.  But the hood -- OH MY GOD did that hurt."
    "Why did you do that?"
    "I went to get my clitoris pierced and the guy said, 'I have never seen a 
clitoris too small to pierce.'  And then: 'Oh my god -- yours is so _TINY_!'  
So, I said fuck it -- do the hood...  The pain was so intense I jumped.  My body
tried to jump away.  I have never felt that kind of pain before."

    While working as a pastry chef, she got to design a big wedding cake for an 
important couple.  She made a four-tier cake with champagne glasses for pillars 
and black and pink ribbons.  It had freshly-cut live roses for decoration.  It 
sounds neat to me.

    She hasn't had sex for one year, two months, and two weeks.  Not for a lack 
of offers, she says.  I don't have trouble believing that.  It's San Francisco, 
after all.

    She tells me that the other night she and a girlfriend went to a tiny park 
in SF and a raccoon was there.  She went up to the animal and gave it a Ricola 
cough drop.  She likens this to communing with nature.  In retrospect, it 
reminds me of the line "Feed Doritos to the bears" in that Dead Kennedys song.  
As is often my wont, I finish her anecdote for her by saying "...and then I 
noticed its foaming mouth -- it had rabies!"  Her response: "No, it _didn't_ 
have rabies."

    We went back to her apartment because she had to pee really bad.  She lives 
half a block north of Page & Fillmore.  On the way there, she tells me that she 
had responded to a few ads in the paper, but mine was the one that intrigued
her the most.

    "I gave everyone else my stage name and a bogus number.  You're the only one
I gave my real name & number to."
    "What's your stage name?"
    "Molly."
    "Why 'Molly'?"
    "From Molly Millions, in _Neuromancer_."
    "Ahhh, yes."

    We get to the door of her house.

    "Breaking blind date rule number one," she says.  Then she opens the door.  
It's narrow and mazelike.  Anyone relying on a wheelchair or crutches would have
a hard time getting in.  She explains that 3 of her roommates are male and one 
is female.  She mentions that the female one is from Australia and only dates 
black men.

    We go to her bedroom.  I sit in a chair and she sits on the mattress, making
and receiving phone calls for most of the remaining 30 minutes.
    On the walls is an odd assortment of stuff: a poster of a naked woman 
pouring water out of a jug, headlined "LIBRA -- blah blah blah"; aluminum foil-
wrapped cardboard stars and a cardboard rocket ship; a calendar depicting a 
naked woman reclining on a crescent moon; a Skinny Puppy poster; a mirror; her 
tape collection; her CD collection; her phone; a wide black-and-white poster I 
can't figure out (probably a band poster); a leather mask; a leather dog collar 
(human-sized); some other stuff.
    We loan each other periodicals: I lend her the 1st issue of "Bob's" Favorite
Comics, and she loans me an issue of _High Society_ magazine with pictures of 
Xuxa.  By coincidence, Amity's in there, too.

    At some point she tells me that in October of 1991, she and a couple of 
other people were riding back from a Pigface show in San Diego.  Her roommate 
fell asleep at the wheel.  Everyone but her was killed in the car wreck.  She 
moved back east for a while, and then returned to SF.  [Ed: incidentally, our
own Lady Carolin knew someone who died in that car crash.  How's that for
spooky?]

    She tells me that she spent last night doing crystal meth and is now just 
too tired to think straight.  We were supposed to go to the Exploratorium and 
then, if things were working out between us, to a block party happening in the 
vicinity of the grand opening of a silkscreening shop of a friend of hers.  But 
she looks too tired to do anything right now.  Fair enough.

    She ends up taking a Valerian root pill.  She asks if I know what it is, and
I confess my ignorance.  She says it's good for putting you to sleep.  She hands
me a paperback called _The Herb Book_ by John Lust.  I look up Valerian in the 
index -- no dice.  Nor is it in the alphabetical list of herbs in the front.  
Then I check the malady list for Sleeplessness -- it says look up Insomnia.  I 
do this.  Valerian root remains unmentioned.
    I point this out and she grabs the other herb book and fans through it.  
It's not there, either.  I tell her that she's been had -- Valerian root pills 
are just sugar pills.  She says, "I _wish_."  Whatever that means.  I think she 
knows I was only kidding.  They could work great, for all I know.  There are 
plenty of natural narcotics.

    After a little while longer, she says, "I'm kicking you out.  I have to take
a nap."
    Me: "OK."
    We get to the front door.
    Her: "Well, I have your number.  So, I think we should, uh... get together 
again sometime."
    Me: "And exchange hostages."
    Her: "Right on.  Bye."


commonalities                         differences
-------------                         -----------
both borderline alcoholics            she does drugs
both fired from photo developer job   I'm employed
both know all the SubGenius stuff     she still belongs
both like Janeane Garofalo            she believes in ESP
both like MC 900 Ft. Jesus            she likes the rave scene
both like pornography                 she's in it
both like Steve Albini                she likes Skinny Puppy
both like the Exploratorium           she's a veggie
both like the Pixies                  she's pierced
both need dental work                 I have dental insurance


    Later, I wonder what would fellow Cult of the Dead Cow member Tequila Willy 
have done?  Willy is quite the stud.  I ask 0mega and he tells me that from the 
first minute, Willy's reaction would have been: "Oh my God -- I'm getting the 
hell out of here!!"

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