                         DREAM FORGE Lite (tm)   

                          A free sample of...

               DREAM FORGE: The e-magazine for your mind!
               -     -

                 Staff: Managing Editor, Rick Arnold
                        Humor Editor,    Dave Bealer


             DREAM FORGE (tm) ISSN: 1080-5877, is published
                  monthly by, and is a trademark of:

                            Dream Forge, Inc.
                    6400 Baltimore National Pike, #201
                           Baltimore, MD. 21228

               President: Dave Bealer  dbealer@dreamforge.com

          Vice President: Rick Arnold  75537.1415@compuserve.com
          ======================================================


Table of Contents:
-----    --------

Editorial: Putting The Kitty To Sleep ........ Dave Bealer .....Pg.  1*
TRAVELS WITH LESLIE- a serial of life, eat it. Leslie Meek ........  3
AFTERNOON STORY ................sf fiction.... Mary Soon Lee ......  7
ACCOUNTING MADE EASY ...........sf fiction.... Ron Enderland ...... 13
THE THIRD BEAST (CHP. 1) .......sf fiction.... Patrick H. Adkins... 16
VOICES IN THE NIGHT .............. horror..... Thomas Nevin Huber.. 22
PHYSICIAN'S LUGGAGE .............. fiction.... Patrick Hernan...... 33*
NO TELL HOTELS ................... humor ..... Jim Rosenberg ...... 45
THIS IS A VACATION? .............. humor ..... Dave Bealer ........ 46
SLAMMIN' YOUR POGS ............... op-ed ..... Ray Koziel ......... 52
THE ROSE ......................... fiction.... Laura Bell ......... 54
THE HEALING FACTOR .............sf fiction.... R.R. Mallory ....... 67
HIDING OUT ON HALLOWEEN .......... humor ..... Drew Feinberg ...... 81*
Poetry -- for YOU and good too -- ............ Various ............ 84^
Music Reviews/SPIRITUAL ADVICE 'N STUFF ...... Rev. Richard Visage. 86
BumperSnickers Seen on the Information Superhighway ............... 88^
DREAM FORGE - Advertising Rates ................................... 89*
AWAKENINGS: NO WAY TO LOSE ....................Jim Nelson ......... 90*

Key:
 *  - indicates the entire work was included in DFL.
 ^  - indicates that a small sample of the whole work was included


DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page  1                   OCT  1995


                DREAM FORGE Lite (tm) ISSN: 1080-5877

                  Volume 1, Number 10, October 1995

           Publisher:  Dave Bealer   (dbealer@dreamforge.com)

       Managing Editor:  Rick Arnold   (75537.1415@compuserve.com)

    DREAM FORGE is published monthly at an annual subscription rate of
    $24 (via regular mail on DOS diskettes) or $12 (via internet email
    or BBS download) by Dream Forge, Inc., 6400 Baltimore National Pike
    #201, Baltimore, MD. 21228-3915

    This is a freeware sampler edition of a commercial magazine.  It 
    may be distributed and displayed online freely.  

    The full commercial editions are NOT shareware or freeware, but are 
    only available to paid subscribers and those who purchase them from 
    Official DREAM FORGE distributors (retail price $2.95).  They may
    be displayed online only by sysops who are paid online display
    subscribers.  Any other use violates international copyright law.

         Contact:  FidoNet: 1:261/1129  (1200-28800/V.34)
                   BBS: (410) 255-6229  (1200-16800/HST)
                   FidoNet: 1:2601/522  (300-28800/V.34)
                   BBS: (412) 588-7863  (300-28800/V.34)
                   Internet: info@dreamforge.com

         Copyright 1995 Dream Forge, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.
         =====================================================

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

Editorial - Putting The Kitty To Sleep
by Dave Bealer

  No.  Don't panic, cat lovers.  Both my cats are in fine health,
although I'll admit to days when I'd happily tie a brick around
one or both of their necks and chuck them in the river.  This is 
a story of a totally different kind of cat.

  Last year at ONE BBSCON in Atlanta I believed some hype from
Mustang Software, not to mention some outright lies from a third 
party maker of add-on products for Wildcat, and bought a copy of 
the Wildcat BBS Suite.  This turned out to be one of the biggest
mistakes I've ever made.  First of all, Wildcat has absolutely no
support for FidoNet networking, which up until now has been most
of what I've done with BBSing.  The add-ons are ugly kludges that
don't really work and play well with Fido.

  The real kick in the head was the UUCP gateway situation.  A
full function UUCP Internet gateway is necessary to implement our 
DREAM FORGE Interactive strategy, and the WcGATE product that
came with the Wildcat Suite just isn't up to the job.  The third
party add-on that was promised to me by November 1994 just left
beta testing.  Worst of all this product STILL doesn't have all 
the features we need, features that were promised to me back in 
August 1994.

DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page  2                   OCT  1995

  The only solution is to change BBS software.  After some
research I turned up a weird situation where the new PCBoard 
release, if it is ever actually released to the public, will
allegedly have all the features we need for DREAM FORGE Inter-
active.  The problem there is that I've always hated PCBoard's
poor excuse for a user interface.

  I finally decided on a compromise.  I've always loved the user
interface of the Searchlight BBS package.  The user interface,
full RIP support, and the fact that the API is written in Turbo
Pascal, a language I actually use, all made me decide in favor 
of Searchlight for The Virtual Word BBS.  It was also decided, 
for complex reasons, to make The Virtual Word separate from the
dreamforge.com domain.

  So sometime during October The Virtual Word BBS will convert
from Wildcat to Searchlight.  The domain name that will be
assigned to The Virtual Word is not determined at this time,
although I'm leaning towards vword.com.

  The dreamforge.com domain name will continue as the home
base for DREAM FORGE magazine.  I'll be using my old copy of
PCBoard and PCB-UUCP to handle the mailing lists and info
response features for DREAM FORGE and DREAM FORGE Interactive.
This is the same software combo I used to maintain the old
RAH internet mailing lists and infoserver, so I know how to
make it work.  All this means that DREAM FORGE Interactive
will be in actual beta test by November 1995, and in public
release by December 1995.

                          {DREAM}

For Sale: Wildcat BBS Suite (up to 250 lines), with Wildmail 
          Fido tosser.  All original manuals and license 
          transfer.  Available after November 1, 1995.  
          $500 or best offer.  Contact: dbealer@dreamforge.com

DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page 33                   OCT  1995

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
PHYSICIAN'S LUGGAGE
  by Patrick Hernan
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

  THOUGH I'M A RIGHT-THINKING Democrat--borrow now, let our 
children pay--I'm grateful to George Bush, whose confusing hint 
to Saddam Hussein, "Sooner, rather than later," kept me at work 
late one frigid January evening in 1991.

  My publisher wanted me, the editor, to stop the press if, in 
his words, "Uncle Sam finally airmailed a few thousand tons of our 
best bang down the snout of that Hooknose Camel Jockey cousin." War
rumblings had built to a crescendo, and on that day, for reasons I
sensed but did not understand, a military strike against Iraq seemed
inevitable if not prudent.  George Bush was big on prudence.

  I waited past six o'clock, the usual quitting time, and at 
roughly six-thirty Tom Brokaw of NBC said something was brewing. 
Sipping my putrid vending-machine black coffee, I learned in the 
next few moments a shot -- no, a cruise missile -- had been launched 
from a U.S. warship knifing through the Gulf. This missile, allegedly 
among our smartest, had paused long enough to get its picture taken, 
righted itself, traversed the nighttime desert at subsonic speed, 
turned left at an intersection in downtown Baghdad, went three 
blocks, turned right, and Boom!--slammed into Saddam's defense 
ministry, thus blasting it to smithereens. In short, it was one 
amazing missile.

DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page 34                   OCT  1995

  History will not record that Mike Cantor, never without his copy 
of "Jane's Defense Weekly," won the office pool and the advertised 
sum of one-hundred dollars. Two weeks beforehand, like a militaristic
Jeane Dixon, "Iron Mike" had picked the date--January 16th--and had
come within ten minutes of picking the unofficial starting time of
six-fifteen. "Six-twenty-five," he had predicted. "Just in time for
Brokaw, Rather, and Jennings."

  Nerved up but impishly relieved the wait was over, I crumpled 
my coffee cup and reached for my smokes. I then switched off my 
ten-inch office set and hauled -- it's easily two city blocks 
under roof -- to the smoking room and its twenty-five-inch, 
carcinogen-caked set. There, while sucking down a nerve-calming 
Marlboro and officiously changing the channel from CNN to NBC, I 
met Ruthie for the first time. Smoking peacefully despite the war, 
she sat in a plump, faded, stained, comfortable orange chair.

  "Where's the coffee?" she quizzed, as though we were longtime 
best pals. "You always have the coffee in the hand when you buzz 
the office. And such a purposeful walk. A real nicotine-crazed walk."

  She was a charmer, all right. Inside two seconds I liked her
articles: the coffee, the hand, the office. Around the ten-second
mark she politely suggested I switch back to CNN. In truth, I was 
a tad put off. Loyalty is everything in war, and I was loyal to NBC
and Brokaw. A switch at this point seemed unpatriotic, and I said
so.

  "If I'm going to get sick from watching the war, I might as 
well get sick in real time," Ruthie pointed out reasonably. And 
thus Tom Brokaw became the first American casualty.

  Wooed by the promise of hair-raising live footage of thunderous
tracer fire, I clicked (that's military talk) to CNN and darted to
the vending machine to get the coffee. Two putrid cups this time. 
I had no doubt Ruthie was strictly black; she drank unadulterated
coffee. No milk. No sugar. Black as the sky over a soot factory. A
true liberal.

  I handed her the coffee and reached for the wall phone: Yep, even
smokers, those noted malingerers, had a phone. "Local Calls ONLY"
warned the hand-scrawled sign, a de-facto reminder of past abuses.

  "Max, stop the press!" I showboated for Ruthie. Truth was, the 
press never ran until the Union crew staggered in, usually after 
midnight, usually late and happy, usually after two or three rounds 
at 'URPH'S B'r and G'ill, once MURPH'S Bar and Grill, a noble house 
of shots and beers despite its annoyingly gasless neon consonants 
and vowels. Ever the patriot, Max knew what I meant. He implemented 
Plan B, which is to say he called up the emergency war story from 
the bowels of his marvelously versatile desktop-publishing machine. 
Presto! The travel-executive world had a canned page one. All Max 
had to do was insert the time the first shot had been fired.

  "All my life I wanted to say `Stop the press!'" Ruthie exclaimed. 
"Or at least be in the same room with someone duly authorized to 
say `Stop the press!'"

DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page 35                   OCT  1995

  I could tell she was awed by my commitment to excellence in trade
journalism. "Glad I could help, Ruthie."

  "You know my name?"

  "I know your name."

  She glanced at her coffee, sniffed, played with her cup, put it
down, tugged her short brown hair, looked at the TV, looked at me,
and flashed the smile. "What's the headline on the war story? The
obviously canned war story."

  "Tourist Biz Bust In Baghdad," I said sheepishly.

  "Awfully aseptic alliteration," she deadpanned. "What's the lead?"

  "There's no place like home -- for now."

  Surrounded by the sound of gunfire, her elegant face reflecting
streaking tracers, Ruthie examined the fairness issue. "Here's fifty
cents for the coffee, Brinny. Milk . . . I need the milk next time."

  I smiled. "You know my name?"

  "I know your name."

  And that, thanks to President Bush and the Pentagon, is how we met.

  WE HAD GREAT DIFFICULTY becoming us. Our first date: a dark, 
beery jazz club on Ripple Ridge Road in Chicago, early Friday 
evening. Her idea. She loved joints that played scratchy old 
records, and so did I.

  "I'll have the Budweiser," she told a hovering waiter who wore a
diamond-bit earring in his left ear.

  "I'll have the Budweiser, too," I smiled and said, parroting 
her speech pattern and thinking that it's good when new pals like 
the same beer. Something downright decent was happening, and Ruthie 
gave me a look of enduring preciousness. It was warm, fuzzy, serious, 
and altogether intentional. I felt demonstrably alive, which differed
from my usual state of aliveness, which was largely mundane and
filled with such chores as hunting for matching socks and pretending
boring people were fascinating.

  "He's gay," Ruthie whispered of the waiter, then put on the
authoritative look of one who has inside information and can't wait
to spill it. "I went to high school with a guy who had three
nipples. Wasn't gay, though."

  I returned her secret smile and said, "Quite a talent, Ruthie, 
being able to ascertain sexuality from the positioning of an earring. 
You know any parlor tricks? Can you juggle?"

  She gave me a look of mock scorn. "Funny. Very funny. It's not 
the earring," she said. "It's the tattoo that says `Joey and Malcolm
forever.' He's Joey."

DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page 36                   OCT  1995

  In the next instant either Joey or Malcolm came with the Budweisers.
I reached for five bucks; I am a fool for tradition.

  "Sharing is caring," Ruthie proclaimed, and it didn't even sound
stilted. "Thank you, please." She paid with her own five, a new one,
I think.

  "My name is Joey," he proclaimed. "I'll be your waiter till the 
cows come home." He dismissed himself and shifted skillfully -- no 
wink, no saunter, no swagger, no tiny, delicate steps -- to another 
table.

  Enormously pleased with herself, Ruthie said "Cheerios" and 
clanged her dewy brown bottle against mine. "By the way," she 
teased. "I know plenty of parlor tricks. Plenty."

  She winked, and I blinked. Then and there I decided this woman, 
this associate editor friend of mine, had the sort of offbeat wit 
and delightful mannerisms that could keep me interested for, say, 
longer than a week. How does one describe the opening moments in 
which a stranger steals your soul? I say soul, not heart, because 
people smarter than I say the soul is the most important part of 
the spirit-mind-body trilogy. It's the one they don't bury or burn.

  We, Ruthie and I, were trade editors in the same publishing 
company, assigned to different "books," as we call them. Now, 
there's a term, books, that bothers me. There's nothing book-like 
about a magazine staff. Getting the damned book out on time is sixty 
percent of the job; the other forty percent is playing ball with 
advertisers. That is to say we schmooze them, coddle them, feed them, 
get loaded with them. We'll do anything for advertisers, except tell 
them how we really feel about certain rotten, pollutive, destructive, 
worthless products. Hell, we love 'em. We're the trade press. Leaders 
in our field. Hurrah. Hurrah.

  Out of fairness I must say the assault is not always so insultingly
transparent. Geographical? Yes. Transparent? No. If in New York: "I
see those Yankees are on a roll. How 'bout that Mattingly? Don't you
agree that Rizzuto is the best announcer on the planet?" If in
Pittsburgh: "Too bad about Clemente. Too, too bad. Way too bad. What
a cannon. And that lovely wife. And those beautiful children." Every
city has its emotional hero, and we'd play to that hero, living or
dead.

  So, on the evening of our first date, Ruthie and I played a 
game that worked like this: We each thought up titles for trade 
magazines that would serve comically narrow markets. Whoever 
stupefied the other for five seconds won by default and got to 
study the encyclopedia with Alex Trebek. Whoever lost got "lovely 
parting gifts."

  "Ashtray Management," she opened casually, lighting a smoke
(Virginia Slims).

  I refused to laugh. This was a toughie, and laughing wasted 
precious seconds. "Aftermarket Dental Apparel," I countered.

DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page 37                   OCT  1995

  Ruthie put on a grievous look, then went for the jugular.
"Physician's Luggage!"

  I made a noise, a shrill gulp, the kind made by Japanese heavies 
who do murderous back handsprings across wide-open rooms in martial-
arts flicks. (A digression: Did you ever notice the guy who's going 
to get whacked never makes an evasive maneuver? He just stands there.
Just stands there and watches all those fatal catapults.) At any
rate, Ruthie, the prescient one, thought she had me.

  "Sausage Grease Quarterly Green Book!" I squealed, tipping my 
beer with my elbow. This turned out to be the winning title; Ruthie
abandoned the game in a bid to save the beer from draining all over
the table. She succeeded, with minimal spillage.

  "Not fair," she protested. "We don't have a Green Book in our
division." She presented me a bottle of foam.

  "Any self-respecting trade division has a Green Book or Blue Book 
or Red Book or Yellow Book," I reminded her. "Name your color."

  "Beige," Ruthie snarled. "Effing beige. Guess I should have come 
up with 'Barbell Buyer's Bi-Annual Beige Book.'"

  "Awfully aseptic alliteration," I said charmingly.

  A smile creased her face. "A good mind and a good memory. But
'Barbell Buyer's' most likely would have won."

  "Most likely," I agreed. "Thanks for saving the beer."

  "Priorities," she said.

  The next game, a longer one, was "Available Credit Lines." She 
sort of sprung it on me.

  "Let's see the cards," Ruthie demanded.

  "What cards?"

  She smacked my hand, which was putting out a Marlboro. "The 
credit cards, buster. Let's match types, companies, colors, and 
credit lines."

  How much did I like this woman? I liked her so much I handed her
more than fifty-thousand dollars worth of available credit -- Visa,
MasterCard, Discover, Diner's Club, AT&T, American Express. My
corporate card alone had a twenty-nine thousand dollar limit, the
total of my 1991 schmooze budget, and schmoozing season for my book
didn't start for six weeks. Ruthie handed me her cards, and we
played out the drama. She had better colors, but as an associate
editor considerably less available credit. I won again, but did 
not understand the dimensions of this win until much later.

  Alas, all good things must come to an end. After relentless 
fun, four beers and two hours, Ruthie glanced at her watch, an
unpretentious Timex. "Gotta go."

DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page 38                   OCT  1995

  "It's only eight-thirty," I protested. She gave me a serious 
look, and I sensed the mood shifting.

  "I am a fool," she said. "An absolute fool."

  A master of the polite fake, I said, "What's his name, and what 
law firm does he work at?"

  Ruthie changed the subject. "Really, Brinny. I'm shocked you'd 
end a sentence with a preposition."

  Remembering Winston Churchill, I said, "This is the sort of 
nonsense up with which I will not put."

  Ruthie gave in. "How'd you know he's a lawyer?"

  It was a no-brainer. "You're the only one in the building, the 
only one of those eight-hundred frustrated writers and artists who
dresses like a potential junior partner."

  "Hope you're not suggesting he tells me what to wear. Really,
Brinny. You're not suggesting that, are you?"

  Oops. Dug myself a hole. "No. Of course not," I covered. "It 
just happens that way. You hang out with someone long enough, you 
start acting like them. It's called informal leadership."

  "Did you buy the subscription to 'Psychology Today' or was it a
gift?  We met in law school."

  This was amazing news. "You're a lawyer?"

  "I'm a lawyer," she began. "A lawyer-turned-writer." Ruthie 
provided details. Important details. "I do the legal-brief sections 
for our publishing group, like Mike Cantor does for yours. I live 
with a lawyer -- a tax lawyer. He adds figures. All kinds of 
figures." Her voiced trailed off.

  I am such a liar. "None of my business. We're pals, right? 
Nothing wrong with this."

  Ruthie squirmed. "Friends, pals, famous thinkers," she said.
"Anyway, I'll be in Idaho all next week, schmoozing the potato
people and urging them to sue. See you when I get back?"

  "Of course, pal." Yes. Absolutely. Pleeease! I thought.

  Now on her feet, Ruthie said, "You're okay, Brinny. A tad 
snobbish. A tad too sure of yourself, but basically decent and okay. 
I bet you cried when the Space Shuttle exploded. And I bet nobody 
knows about it. Gotta go. Bye."

  Abruptness, as it turned out, was part of her charm. We did 
not kiss. We shook. But it was a bit too purposeful, a bit too 
longlasting, I thought, not to have implied, if not intimate,
meaning. To say I liked this woman is to say a river has water. 
She was alive with substance, alive with the stuff that often
disappointed me in other relationships, other romances. Spontaneous.
Smart. Snappy. Feisty. Serious. Playful. Evasive. Right for me and 
about me.

DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page 39                   OCT  1995

  "You get bored too easily" was the opening line in the standard
speeches against me. "You're too concerned about intellectual
compatibility, symbolism, figuring out how and why things work or 
do not work. You're too dismissive, too inattentive, too bent on
perfection. Why don't you just take it as it comes like the rest of
us schmucks? Why can't you say, in moments of enlightenment, 'I love
you?'"

  They are right, those critics, and it bothers me -- but not enough 
to change. I like smart women, women with brown eyes and brown skin 
and brown hair that is problematic. I like educated women who worked 
at amusement parks during the summer and learned it is not a sin to 
mix business with pleasure. I like women who went back to school and
studied more than enough to get by but still found time to drink
beer from a pitcher. I like women who get nervous inside but won't
talk about it; that's what happens to me. I need to tap that
nervousness, and I need mine tapped. That's where I'm most alive. 
(I have a sinking feeling that at least twenty percent of my 
creativity is trapped in there).

  Naturally, I had another beer, my fifth, and listened to an 
Alberta Hunter blues series. I choked down a sixth beer, left Joey 
five bucks, and soon was home watching CNN, the only place to be for
around-the-clock war coverage. I fell asleep thinking about the
handshake, the understated nervousness, the passion for life, the
wit, the charm, the coffee, the Budweiser, the brown eyes, *the
everything*. But most of all I thought about the tax lawyer.

  I COULD NOT RULE OUT war-related terrorism in my neighborhood, 
which looks and works loosely like this: Across from my apartment 
complex Arab merchants run a convenience store. My neighbors from 
behind are fair-eyed orthodox Jews. They avoid the Arab shopkeepers, 
won't wave at anybody, won't look anybody in the peeper. Blacks and 
whites live on both sides. They mostly avoid eye contact with each 
other, occasionally wave or nod, and don't mind patronizing the Arab
merchants. The Jewish mothers won't let their kids play with black
kids, but white kids, save the Jews, play with black kids and vice
versa.

  My best acquaintance in the building is a Chinese guy, Charlie the
Cop, who drinks too much beer, sleeps around, and stays up late. I
am the white guy he buzzes when he gets too drunk and locks himself
out of the building. I love to regale people with Charlie the Cop's
tall tales and heartfelt claim that life does not begin at forty, it
begins at point four-zero. When I have a date, I often talk about
Charlie the Cop. He is an excellent icebreaker.

  Anyhow, the chilly Saturday morning after my first date with 
Ruthie I saw something that made me sick and could have gotten me 
killed. Practically every Saturday morning I go to the Arab 
convenience store to buy a paper and a sixteen-ounce Coke. The paper 
is always thirty-five cents, and the Coke is always seventy-five 
cents. On this Saturday the Coke bottle had a yellow banner that 
said "Four Ounces Free," so I knew I would get twenty ounces for 
seventy-five cents.

DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page 40                   OCT  1995

  I stood in line on the mopped-with-mud tile floor. In front of 
me, three spoiled brats in need of strict parental supervision 
argued over the relative merits of slime-green chewables or rock-
hard sour balls. Behind me, a black man kept peering through the 
front door into the potholed parking lot, where a tractor-trailer 
sat idling. He's a truck driver, I thought. He's a truck driver 
keeping an eye on his ride. This was not odd -- trucks often idled 
outside this store -- except I noticed he had the same items I had: 
a paper and a Coke. I did not notice what the people behind him had.

  Slime-green chewables won out, and it became my turn to pay. 
The Arab attendant smiled at me and said with a heavy accent, "One
dollah -- ten cents." I handed him a dollar and a dime, as I had 
done so many Saturday mornings. I heard the truck driver clear his
throat; he was getting ready for his turn. "Who be next?" the
attendant said quickly, sharply, to the truck driver. I walked
toward the door, but before my hand met the crash bar I heard the
attendant say, "One dollah -- tirty cents."

  What? I thought. Did I hear that right? I couldn't believe it: 
The Arab, in front of witnesses, was going to charge the truck 
driver twenty cents for four free ounces of Coke. I turned around 
and saw the truck driver suppressing a slow boil. He looked at me. 
I looked at him. I felt scared and ashamed, and was proof positive 
of a double standard. White guys, sure enough, got their four free 
ounces for free.

  "I pay one dollah," blared the truck driver, pointing at me. 
"Reep off!"

  Jumping Jesus! I thought. I didn't rip off anybody. I paid a dollar
and ten cents, the exact price. That's what the truck driver should
pay. His anger was understandable, but I didn't feel he was entitled 
to pay a buck, to get an extra ten cents off, to demand reparations.

  "One dollah -- tirty cents," the attendant said.

  The truck driver was steamed. "One dollah," he snapped, imitating
the Arab's broken English. The truck driver had an African accent,
perhaps Nigerian. It was so strange, so telling, to watch this battle 
of accents. Imitation is not always the sincerest form of flattery.

  "One dollah -- tirty cents," demanded the Arab. Pointing at me, he
said, "He mah custumah regulah."

  The truck driver went ballistic. "Four ounces is free, four ounces
is free! I weel not pay tirty cents for four ounces is free. I cull
d'police!"

  The Arab, incredibly, scanned the line for support. I had the
feeling he expected white people to rise up in his defense,
considering they, by his judgment, were clever enough not to pay
twenty cents for four free ounces of Coke, and black people were
not. As though caught but nonetheless unapologetic, the Arab
relented. "No police. One dollah -- ten cents."

DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page 41                   OCT  1995

  "Blast you, mun!" screamed the truck driver, throwing down the 
paper and the Coke, which surprisingly didn't shatter. Everyone in 
line put down his stuff and walked toward the door, toward me. I was
nervous. My pulse raced. Feeling the need to defend myself by
deflecting total and absolute blame to the Arab, I started to say
something to the truck driver.

  "Nevuh mind, mun," he interrupted "It's freaking Saddam Hussein 
ovuh thuh. He hate d'African and d'Jew. He hate you, too, mun. See 
tat sign behint you?"

  I looked, and a chill came over me: SPECIAL TODAY: 20 OUNCE COKE &
NEWSPAPER: $1

  The truck driver tore the sign off the window, went outside and
climbed into a reddish '87 Camaro. A white woman hopped into the
tractor-trailer, fired it up and drove off. She had a kid with her,
possibly her son. I wasn't sure what I had just seen but knew I
didn't like it. I put down my paper and Coke and left without asking
for my money back. Maybe that made the Arab the victor, and maybe
what I left behind were the spoils. I don't know. I just know I
respected the black man and would never again do business with this
Arab merchant. I wondered if, by some decree, it was suddenly okay
to lump in all Arabs with Saddam Hussein, conqueror of Kuwait,
killer of Kurds and attacker of Israel. I decided it was not. We
were, after all, aligned with the Egyptians and the Saudi Arabians
on this one, and those people were Arabs. Nice Arabs. Later I called
my mother. She told me there were good Arabs and bad Arabs, and that
her best friend in college was an Arab. A good Arab.

  So, anyway, Ruthie later told me plenty of women drive trucks, 
and that I never should have assumed the black guy was a truck 
driver, and that I should pay more attention to signs, and that 
she knew a place that sold a paper and a Coke for ninety cents. "So 
effing typical," she said. "And I hope you don't indict the entire 
Arab-American community for this isolated, shameful incident."

  I promised her I would not.

  IT WAS A THURSDAY MORNING (dreadfully early). I was having a war
dream when the television, now tuned exclusively to CNN, began to
annoy me. Unconsciously, I reached for the clicker but discovered it
wasn't the TV that annoyed me, it was the telephone. It rang and
rang, and there's nothing so shrill as a telephone ringing in the
middle of the night. This was a most unusual occurrence, as most of
my relatives are already dead. "Uh, hello?"

  A nasal voice that reminded my foggy mind of Lily Tomlin said, 
"Long distance for Mr. Potato Head. Collect call from Idaho for Mr. 
Potato Head." I knew no one in Idaho, I was not Mr. Potato Head, my 
number was unlisted, and I never gave it out. Not even to female 
pals. "It's Ruthie, Mr. Potato Head."

  Now happily groggy, I said, "How you is? And how'd you get my
number -- not that I mind you have it." It was early, but I was
touched.

  "The card," Ruthie said. "I have the card."

DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page 42                   OCT  1995

  "What card?"

  "The phone card, Brinny. I have the phone card."

  I am pained to describe the influence this woman had over me. 
What some might see as an act of thievery, I saw as an act of 
requited affection. Hell, petty theft has a certain romance to it. 
"Pretty nifty," I said in my unflappable voice. "Suppose I'll have 
to start destroying the carbons when you're around." There was a 
pause, a few seconds of dead air. Thinking time.

  And then it was electric, better than nicotine. The woman I met 
in the Smoking Room had a big-time crush on me. "That's why I'm
calling. I think I want to be . . . around. Yep, that's it. I want
to be around you," she proclaimed. "Am I allowed to say I miss
you?"

  Yes! Yes! Yes! Of course! Dammit! Yes! I did a mental catapult.
"Bien sur," I chimed, but then my memory kicked in. "What about the
lawyer?" It is my editorial training that causes me to cut to the
chase, to be skeptical.

  "Sixty days," Ruthie said.

  "Sixty days?"

  "Sixty days," she said again. "He's important, but I do not love
him, and he does not love me. I'll need thirty-five days to plan,
twenty days to summon the nerve, and five days to cry and argue and
be alone."

  I cleared my throat. "Leading to what?"

  "Leading to us becoming divine friends -- in separate quarters, 
of course. Space, Brinny. I need the space. But there's something 
about you. It's like I know you and can feel you. Please don't be 
afraid, but I haven't felt an attraction like this since . . . 
hell, I've never felt an attraction like this. I stole the card and 
knew I'd call you at some godawful hour. I do such stuff. I'm in 
effing Idaho; it's two-effing-thirty. I can't sleep, and I usually 
sleep the minute my head hits the pillow. Do you want to become 
divine friends?"

  It was the no-brainer of all time. "The divinest," I said dreamily
and with great relief.

  "Me, too. Bye, Brinny." Click.

  Charmed again by her sweet abruptness, I put down the phone and
looked at the TV.  A reporter wearing a gas mask was on live during
a Scud missile attack in Israel. "There go the Patriots!" he
screamed, and ducked.  He was talking about missiles, and I was
watching war in real time.

DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page 43                   OCT  1995

  HOW OFTEN DOES A PLAN come together absolutely? Every once in a
while I begin to miss a particular dish, a particular restaurant. I
plan to go to the restaurant, and in fact go, but more often than
not order something other than what I thought I missed. But missing
something is what got me there, and just being there, I've come to
learn, is the thing. You can't make a choice unless you go to the
source of the choice, feel it out, discriminate, get comfy, think
about it, think again, and finally take action. At least I think
that's the way it works.

  Strange though it may sound, I did not seek Ruthie out on any of
those sixty days. I did not want to give counsel. Nor did I want her
to feel obligated to anyone other than herself. After all, wasn't
that the problem? Two people feeling obligated but not loving each
other? It was good enough -- in small ways -- to let her know I 
cared. That was easy; the hard part was staying away.

  I also did some minor behind-the-scenes caring, but that was for
myself. At one in the morning I drove through sleet and drizzle to
the Marriott Plaza Hotel. I told Carla, the midnight auditor, that
though I admired her -- "You're tops" -- and though I respected her
-- "What kind of guy do you think I am?" -- and though I enjoyed 
our passionate, inelegant romps -- "Is this illegal?" -- I now sought
something more, something like love and commitment, something like
sanity and stability in a relationship.

  "Can I come over and get my make-up kit?" Carla asked. Before I
could answer, the switchboard phone rang. My memory is a little
fuzzy, but the conversation went something like this: "Roger? Is
that you, Roger Ramjet? Hi, Roger! Can you hang on a min. Uh,
Brinny. Just throw it away, okay?"

  Carla dismissed me with a tired wave, and it was back to Roger 
and his delightful Ramjet.

  We, Ruthie and I, downscaled considerably. We used fewer words 
and gave each other knowing glances. Mixed with nicotine, that is
powerful stuff. I did not quiz her. She did not update me. We saw
one another only at work. I wanted very much to become divine
friends, but decided I better not bank on it.

  "Shall we?" she said, after secretly dialing my extension.

  "We shall."

  So off we hauled -- two minutes apart -- to the Smoking Room. We 
smoked. We looked. We agreed that this would be the year the Tribe 
would finally win. That was the extent of our relationship, and the 
nebs never guessed we were silent somethings.

  Mike Cantor also was a famous smoker. He had taken to wearing 
tweed jackets, perhaps because of their implied sophistication. Odd. 
Mike began to look smarter than us all. Never underestimate the power 
of tweed, I thought. One day I picked up a copy of "Jane's Defense
Weekly" he'd left behind. I saw it for what it was: a bone for the
Bozos who thought a lucky guess was the same thing as military genius. 
Mike was smart like that. Most lawyers are.

DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page 44                   OCT  1995

  Because I mark down everything on my calendar, I knew the exact 
day the sixty days would expire. But since Uncle Sam destroyed Saddam
Hussein's army in far less time than that, I had to change my viewing 
habits. How ironic, I thought. Waiting on Ruthie was going to be worse 
than sweating out a war. But I knew I could do it. Maybe Gorby would 
get overthrown in Moscow, and maybe CNN would once again keep me up 
around the clock. It was back to NBC. Back to Brokaw at six-thirty.

  The sixtieth day came and went without an announcement from Ruthie.
She didn't even dial my extension. Thinking it might be too forward,
too aggressive, too something, I didn't dial hers, either. I smoked
alone. How often does a plan come together absolutely? Not too
damned often, I thought.

  Later, I privately commiserated by making a pot of stifling-hot,
beef-laden chili. It was my answer to chocolate. I fell asleep
early. In the middle of the night I heard the TV, no the telephone,
no the door buzzer. It was unusual for the door buzzer to ring at
that hour, but it had happened before. My neighbor, Charlie the Cop,
would get drunk and lock himself out.

  Since buzzing without looking is dangerous, I went to the door 
and peered into the outside entryway. No one was there, so I went 
back to bed. It was then I heard someone tapping on my window. 
Someone tapping and cackling. I threw back the blind, and in very 
poor light saw Charlie the Cop.

  "Brinny," he wailed, "I'm drunk and I can't get up!" Charlie fell
back and laughed; it was funny because it was stupid. Typical cop
hyperbole. Brrrr! I went outside and fetched him, and poured him
back in his apartment.

  "Want a beer? I drank more beer than Glidden has paint!" he 
bragged. "Lucky nobody called the cops on me, those drunks!"

  "Goodnight, Charlie." I went back to my apartment -- and discovered 
I was not alone. "You know where I live?"

  "I know where you live."

  "And you know Charlie?"

  "I do not know Charlie; I knew Charlie would flop for the six-pack."

  I was in heaven. "Cute. Divinely cute."

  "I pay attention when people regale me," Ruthie said.

  The TV, mysteriously, was tuned to CNN, and I noticed a small
suitcase on the floor. This would be the start of a long weekend, 
I hoped.

  "Physician's Luggage?" I asked.

  "Physician's Luggage," she smiled and said.

  And then this beautiful woman I had never even kissed winked and
asked if I knew any parlor tricks.

DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page 45                   OCT  1995

  "Plenty."

                               {DREAM}
                               
Copyright 1995 Patrick Hernan, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Patrick is a Pennsylvania writer.  He can be reached via e-mail at
patrick.hernan@f553.n2601.z1.fidonet.org.
====================================================================

DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page 81                   OCT  1995


-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
HIDING OUT ON HALLOWEEN: 
 Videos Ease Your Guilt
   By Drew Feinberg
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


  Halloween is almost upon us, coming quicker than Hugh Grant 
in a BMW. As Meg Tilly so brilliantly asked in the cinematic 
disaster known as Body Snatchers, "Where ya gonna go? Where ya 
gonna run? Where ya gonna hide?" Eloquently, she voices the dilemma 
of millions of Americans every October 31. I've done them all, with 
less than optimum results. Let's run through the options, shall we? 

  Okay, first there's trick or treating. Being a greedy bastard and 
visiting every house within a 20 mile radius, hitting them up for the
goods, is socially acceptable as child, but, three years ago, when I 
was dressed as Zsa Zsa Gabor and asked all of my neighbors: "Give me 
some candy, DAHLING, or I'll give you a slap," the results were less 
than desirable. From what I can remember I got assorted candy bars, 
candy corns, rocks, kitchenware, lollipops, and a jack o'lantern -- 
still lit -- THROWN at me, with great velocity. 

 I can't even spell the names people called me, and I was told to 
do things to myself that aren't even physically possible, lord knows 
I've tried. One grandmotherly looking woman was actually kind to me, 
and gave me some popcorn. My faith in mankind had been restored, that 
is, until I heard the muffled call to her husband "Come see this poor 
slow boy. It's lovely to see the mentally challenged out and about." 
At the tender age of 23, I retired from trick or treating forever. 

  The next year I opted to stay home, watch some scary movies, 
and give wondrous candy to the legit trick or treaters. The 
candy aisle at the supermarket was pure pandemonium. I might as 
well have been looking for the last green Power Ranger on Christmas 
Eve. I didn't want to be one of those houses that gave out nickels, 
fruit, hard bubble gum, cream soda, Dum-Dumms that stick to the 
paper, black licorice, those awful dark chocolate Hershey's 
Miniatures, or Smarties. Honestly, do people ever BUY Smarties for 
themselves? 

  I made a quick scan of what was available, and I saw some variety 
packs of assorted good chocolate stuff that the others had apparently 
not seen. I made a mad dash to get two packs. I popped 'em in my cart 
and very confidently strolled to the checkout counter. The line was 
huge, and I noticed the elderly woman behind me had nothing in her 
cart but a box of Metamucil, so I let her go in front of me. I started 
to sing along with the Muzak..."Precious and few are the moments we 
two can shaaaaaaare..." CRASH! I looked to my side and saw this huge 
pyramid of canned beets topple over. "Hope that wasn't my singing," 
I thought to myself, then turned back. Quicker than I could say "The 
cast of Wings should be sterilized," my treasures were GONE! I was 
completely bewildered. 

DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page 82                   OCT  1995

  I was shocked when I looked in the cart ahead of me. The old 
woman I had sacrificed selflessly for, had two bags of assorted 
chocolates along with her Metamucil. I tried to conceal my anger and 
kindly said to the woman "Excuse me, I think those are my Halloween 
candies there." I believe she mouthed the words "Bite me." I walked 
right up to her cart and reached in and picked up what was rightfully 
mine. That's when she started bawling hysterically, which caused the 
entire supermarket to glare in my direction. I was frozen like 
Jennifer Tilly would be if you aimed a flashlight at her eyes. I was 
never so furious AND so humiliated; I just stood there with my hand 
in the metaphorical cookie jar. 

  I slowly backed out of the store, and still candyless, I decided 
to go to a convenience store, where I bought 50 Chunky bars. A 
mixture of chocolate, nuts, and raisins makes my stomach turn, but 
hey, I didn't have to eat 'em. I had enough Chunky bars to feed a 
small South American country, or Marlon Brando. I sat down and started 
to watch HALLOWEEN. Before the opening credits were finished, the 
doorbell rang. "Trick Or Treat," I was greeted by a child and his 
mother. "Here ya go, fella," I smiled as I handed him a Chunky. The 
child glowed; the mother frowned. "Michael is ALLERGIC to nuts. Don't 
you have anything else?" she inquired. 

  "Umm...n-n-no..." I stammered. The mother ripped the treat from 
her son's hand and handed it back to me, setting Michael into a temper 
tantrum. "I'm really sorry," I managed to say. 

  "Thank you, thank you VERY much, it was his first Halloween and 
you ruined it for him. Aren't you proud of yourself?" she sneered, 
as she stormed off. I sighed, shrugged, and went back to my movie. 
Five minutes later, more doorbell. Two teenage girls dressed up --
looked like the girls from Clueless, gum chewing and all. 

  "Like, trick or treat." 
  
  I handed them two chunky bars, which appalled them. Clueless #1:
"Like HELLO, do you KNOW how many grams of fat are in a Chunky? Only 
like a MILLION!" and she handed it back to me. 

  Clueless #2: "Geez Louise, don't you have any like Snackwells or 
fat free potato chips?" and deposited El Chunky back in my hand. And 
so it went all night. Kids whining about chocolate, kids complaining  
about raisins, kids bitching about options, in 4 hours I got through 
about 15 minutes of my movie. And got stuck with 45 Chunky bars. Hey, 
you want a Chunky? 

  Last year I tried another great Halloween option -- the costume 
party. I bopped on down to "Costumes 'R Us," to rent one, which was 
oh-so-wise to do on Halloween day. Sparse selection? The place was 
emptier than Jennie McCarthy's skull. Let me tell you, all eyes were 
focused when I stumbled in the door as a huge orange box of Tide. 
I felt about as mobile as Gilbert Grape's mother. I scanned the room 
and saw assorted Beavises, Ticks, Shannen Doughertys, Newt 
Gingritches, and one big orange blob. I went straight to the punch 
bowl and then mingled about. 

DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page 83                   OCT  1995

  Everybody bored me, and they all seemed to be staring at the 
monstrosity that was my costume. Then I saw her, the woman I would 
spend forever with, the woman who wouldn't bitch at me for drinking 
milk out of the carton. She was a twin of Mia Wallace (a.k.a. Uma 
Thurman in Pulp Fiction), and she looked me straight in the eye, 
walked up to me, and what followed was a few hours of engaging 
conversation; this and my never empty punch cup kept me in seventh 
heaven. In the middle of debating which was more torture, watching 
the OJ trial or watching a Mickey Rourke movie, she blurted out
"Do you always talk so much before you a kiss a girl?" That was all 
the invitation I needed. 

  I wrapped my arms around her and kissed. It was just like the 
movies . . . the world started to spin in a little circle, like in 
a DePalma film, except it made me dizzy, and I suddenly realized it 
wasn't the kiss, but the heavy imbibing at the punchbowl. I lost my 
balance, which is not a smooth thing mid-kiss. The huge Tide box 
caused me to stumble and I held my love tight, knowing she would be 
my rock and prevent my imminent falling, but my feet became entwined 
with hers and I fell forward, taking Mia Wallace with me. I could 
see her expression of horror; the girl I so wanted to impress was 
being crushed by Mr. Tide himself. 

  I believe the words that she used were "Jesus, I can't feel my 
legs! I struggled and squirmed, as Batman and Thor managed to pull 
me off of her, but by then it was too late. Physically, Mrs. Wallace 
was fine, but she was none too pleased with my squashing her, 
inadvertent as it was. In fact, everybody at the party just sort of 
glared and pointed at me until I left in utter shame. No more 
Halloween parties for ME, thank you very much. 

  Don't walk down the same unpaved road as I did. Learn from my 
mistakes, my friend. 

  This Halloween, hide out with some friends, turn off the lights, 
and rent some movies. Try a couple of these, you'll thank me later: 
Halloween, Nightmare On Elm Street, Frankenhooker, Carrie, The Shining, 
Evil Dead 2, Dead Alive, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Exorcist, 
and Re-Animator. When the doorbell rings, don't answer it. There's no 
shame. In fact, I've found that detaching the doorbell all together 
makes things much more pleasant. And if you turn the volume up really 
loud, you can't even hear those little fists knocking. 

                               {DREAM}
                               
Copyright 1995 Drew Feinberg, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
You can contact Drew at: afeinber@panix.com
====================================================================

DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page 84                   OCT  1995

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<-DREAM->>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
                               POETRY . . .
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=******-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
SKELETONS
  by Jay Marvin
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

You know it's so wrong
their taking it away
leaving skeletons to dance
in the streets for a dime
or a quarter shackles
around their ankles
arraigned in courts
presided over by flesh
clothed in false silk
of stolen opportunity
you know it's wrong
their taking it away
so why do you sit there
and do nothing?
reading the paper
waiting for someone else
to save you before you
start to dance and become
a skeleton too.
-------------------------

Copyright 1995 Jay Marvin, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Marvin is a twenty two year veteran of radio. His poems and 
short stories have been accepted and published in: Sign of The Times, 
Sign of the Times Ten Year Anthology, Ishmael Reed's Konch, Black 
Bear Review, San Fernando Poetry Journal, Nihilistic Review, Blank 
Gun Silencer, Impetus, Point Of Interest, Long Beach Guts-Ette, Fifth 
Estate, Schmaga, Dumpster Times, The And, Druken Boat, Eclipse 
Magazine, New York Quarterly, Bouillabaisse, CokeFish, Tabula Rasa, 
Malcontent, True Wheel, Fell Swoop, Verse, Fuel, Experiment In Words,
SchockBox, ZuZu's Petals, Gypsy, Hunted News, Uno Mas Magazine, Art 
Mag, Plastic Tower, Struggle, Man Alive, Redneck Review Of Literature, 
The Vinyl Elephant, Backwoods, Sacrifice The Common Sense, The Old Red 
Kimono, Chiron Review, Thrust, Bitter Zone Terminal, Obfuscating On 
Thin Ice, The Flower Shop, Poetic Eloquence, Sulphur River Literary 
Review, Atom Mind, Tight, Bold Print, Poetry Motel, Plazm, Poked With 
Sticks, O!! Zone, Pearl, Flipside, S.L.U.G.fest, io, Drivers Side 
Airbag, Caffeine, Surreal, Shrapnel, Ebbing Tide, In Your Face, 
Insomnia & Poetry, Abuse #4, The Glass Cherry, Indelible Ink, Spilled 
Ink, Sophmore Jinx, New Digressions, White Sands, Pink Pages, Tomorrow 
Magazine, Mudfish, Toxic Shock, Bleeding Sheep, Carbon 14, South Ash 
Press, Sniper Logic, Zen Tattoo, Mojo Risin, Poet's Park, So It Goes, 
Departure From Normal, Midnight Toast, In Vito, Angel Angst, and a 
chapbook of poetry Angel Wings published by Schmaga Press, Two 
Brothers Under The Same Blood Soaked Cover a chapbook with Bill 
Shields from Strange Press, Tasting What You Touch a chapbook with 
Paul Weinman from Piss Ona Convict Press, and a collection of poems 
and prose poems titled In Your Face: The Midnight Poems of Jay Marvin
Spectrum Press of Chicago. His radio show airs nightly from WLS AM in 
Chicago. Email: jmarvin@igc.apc.org or 102547.1273@compuserve.com
======================================================================
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<{DREAM}>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=*****=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page 88                   OCT  1995

--- BumperSnickers Seen On The Information Superhighway

The time to relax is when you don't have time to relax.

Breaking a cookie in half lets the calories fall out.

A laugh is a smile with a soundtrack.

Health tip: Red meat IS good meat; Blue fuzzy meat is BAD.

A library serves no purpose unless someone is using it.

My other computer is a Timex Sinclair.

{There were nearly 30 more taglines in the full edition of this
month's issue of DREAM FORGE.}

                               {DREAM}
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

                  DREAM FORGE ADVERTISING RATES:

Display Ads:
=-=-=-=-=-=

  Rates are for a single online display page: no larger than 79
  characters (columns) wide and 23 lines long. Layout ready copy
  only -- inquire for ad design rates.

       ASCII Text:       $25/month       $275/year

       ANSI or RIP:      $40/month       $440/year

  A 10% discount will be applied for two or more pages of advertising
  run in the same issue.

       (The publisher reserves the right to refuse any
       advertising deemed inappropriate for DREAM FORGE.)


Published by:   Dream Forge, Inc.
                6400 Baltimore National Pike, #201
                Baltimore, MD. 21228-3915

                e-mail: dbealer@dreamforge.com
          Fido netmail: 1:261/1129 (410) 255-6229

    Dave Bealer, President
    Rick Arnold, Vice President

* DREAM FORGE is a trademark of Dream Forge, Inc.
=====================================================================

DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page 90                   OCT  1995

<<*=-AWAKENINGS-=*>>
   -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
   NO WAY TO LOSE
     by Jim Nelson
   =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


  I sit at my desk, writing this the night before Windows 95 is
"officially" released to an eagerly awaiting public. It's already 
gone on sale on the East coast, but it will be two more hours before 
it's available in California. A computer store in San Jose has 
announced it will begin selling Windows 95 "one nanosecond after
midnight". Cripes.

  Bill Gates has won again. Windows 95 is a guaranteed winner for 
the boys in Redmond, and I'm sure they've broken into the bubbly by 
now. And why not? Microsoft is releasing the most eagerly anticipated 
piece of software in the (admittedly short) history of computing. The
forecast is an immediate, guaranteed sale of thirty million units -- 
if you assume 270 million Americans, one of every nine citizens will 
be holding a copy of Windows 95 in their hands by year's end. That's 
about one for every other household family.

  The Beatles surmised they were more popular than Jesus Christ. 
Well, in a Revenge of the Nerds twist, Bill Gates has outdistanced
both the Beatles and the man from Galilee. Jesus had twelve friends 
and worked for free; the Beatles were four guys that sold their song 
rights to a guy who's drinking buddy is a simian. Compare this to 
Bill Gates, who has marshalled more manpower than the Battle of the 
Bulge, and he'll be making bank on this for a very long, long time.

  At least until someone shoots the decrepit IBM/Intel architecture 
in the head and puts an end to this wicked craziness. I won't bother 
with the obvious, comparing Win95 to the Mac's decade-old 
achievements, that has been written to death and is plainly obvious. 
I will point out that Win95 does NOT put the nail in the Mac's coffin. 
Compaq and Dell and others have made putting together a home PC 
system almost as simple as the Mac. But after a year, when the 
computer novice wants to add another hard drive, or a FAX/modem, or 
a CD-ROM drive, watch out.

  Ten years ago, Apple really truly approached this issue as a 
comsumer electronics question. Steve Jobs and company wanted to 
make a computer as friendly as your coffee maker. I can't say they 
succeeded, but a standard home installation of a Macintosh is 
comparable to setting up a home stereo or VCR. This is a good thing.

  Unfortunately, Apple has been struck with a case of operating 
system envy. Their advertising tactics have come full circle, from 
the tres chic Big Brother ad to directly slamming Microsoft for
lack of future vision and direction. I won't even argue if this is
valid or not, but selling thirty million copies of anything buys a 
company a lot of time to think and plan, and is enough money to hire 
the best people to do it right next time . . . even if those people 
work for Apple.

DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page 91                   OCT  1995

  Why does Bill Gates survive? Why do the business and home 
consumers keep coming back for more of the same? I suspect it's a 
general perception issue, the voice from the past that continues to 
haunt the corridors of Apple's Cupertino offices: "the Mac's not a 
real computer." Plus Microsoft's aggressive development style, a 
software version of the Japanese automobile strategy, a continual 
cycle of gradual improvement and refinement.

  I think this is more accurate than many would grant. It really 
does explain a lot; look at the very topic at hand, Windows 95. 
Nothing really "new" here, any way you look at it. For example, the 
user interface has changed, but there's nothing so radically wild 
that knocks you on your ass out of shock. Get rid of the 3-D effects, 
the beveled edges, the animated icons, and lo, it's Windows 3.x. And 
the toolbar -- sheesh. Windows toolbars (a.k.a. Program Manager 
replacements) were all the rage three years ago. There were so many 
shareware toolbars floating around out there, and you couldn't tell 
one from the other. Microsoft was the last company to figure this out, 
apparently, and incorporated it right into the operating system and 
made it the centerpiece of their marketing blitz.

  What kind of user-interface "experts" are they hiring anyways? 
The way the toolbar layers and sub-menus everything, by the time you 
get to the item you want to run, you've pushed-and-clicked from the 
left side of the screen to the right and back. Whadda mess.

  And why hasn't anyone slammed Microsoft for moving that damn close
button? The company I work for has had beta copies of Win95 for 
months, and I still click the close button thinking I'm maximizing
the window. I only realize my mistake after the application has shut
down. So then I have to click on the toolbar again, work through nine 
menu hierarchies to find the application again and get it running. Of 
course, the window winds up a little small, so I maximize it . . .
hell's bells.

  If you haven't guessed by now, I'm not real impressed by the 
interface. On the whole, it seems pretty candy-coated, and it really 
bugs me that this hasn't received more criticism in the computing 
press. Any PC user who calls the Mac interface "too cute" and then 
slobbers on and on about Win95 needs to be hit over the head with a 
stack of Microsoft manuals.

  Okay, interface aside, even the underlying architecture is one 
of slow, gradual improvement. As various "undocumented" books will 
point out, Windows 95 is still running on top of old, reliable MS-DOS. 
Even if you run pure 32-bit applications, Windows 95 will call down 
to the real-mode MS-DOS layer for help, and it does it quite a bit. 
Microsoft's got too much money, people, and motivation to do this due 
to stupidity or laziness. This architecture maximizes compatibility 
with any application, driver, or network out there, without relying 
on the third-party vendors to play catch-up and rewrite their code. 
To ask Microsoft to make Win95 a full 32-bit OS (like Windows NT) is 
to ask Microsoft to bite the hand that feeds. There's just too much 
money on the table for them to give away the store, even if it's for 
good engineering or aesthetic reasons.

DREAM FORGE (tm)               Page 92                   OCT  1995

  I was just joking a few paragraphs back about Microsoft doing it 
right the next time -- they'll never do it right. The unfortunate side 
effect of this gradual improvement is that Microsoft's stuck supporting 
old software, and as long as backward compatibility is a major selling 
point (it always will be), you can be damn sure Microsoft will continue 
to foist compromises rather than solutions on the American public.

  Anyone arguing that Windows 95 technology suffers is dead on target, 
but I think it's pretty obvious that success in the computer business
has very little to do with a quality product. It's a right-place-right-
time equation, mixed in with aggressive sales tactics, good networking, 
and solid people dedicated to the product, no matter how crummy it may 
be. Microsoft's success is juggling these diverse elements while still 
keeping an eye on the moving target that always lies ahead.

                               {DREAM}

Copyright 1995 Jim Nelson, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Nelson publishes _Ad Nauseam_, a zine on the World Wide Web 
located at http://www.crl.com/~jnelson/nauseam/. In his spare time, 
he develops device drivers and plays the drums. His current 
addictions include 80's techno-pop and Redhook beer. You can email
Jim at: jnelson.crl.com.
=============================={DREAM}===============================
         Copyright 1995 Dream Forge, Inc., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
                               {FIN}
