"Mongitude!"

All Hail the Mighty Emperor Mong!

From ARRSEpedia, he's defined as a "Malevolent cosmic being directly responsible for the World's ills and for those (in retrospect) idiotic decisions we've all made from time to time.." Of course he's spent more than his fair share of time hanging around the Atari scene and demo scene in general, so here are some extracts from his night time chats with various deluded individuals. So enjoy yourselves! (Unless you've been fingered in the course of this article!)

"Bwahahah! It is I, the mighty Emperor Mong! I am omnipresent, like the farty smell that just won't go away after I told you to let it out in the first place. I am always close by, with my best advice, and your best interests at heart. So listen very carefully when I speak, for I am the wise Emperor Mong and my instructions must be obeyed at all times. If anything goes wrong afterwards, then it was clearly your fault as you didn't get the execution of my instructions right, O' worthless fool!"

To give you a better idea of what I am talking about, here's a non-scene Mong 'happening', involving me when I was a somewhat smaller person than I am now, but still old enough to know better.

Me - "I'll just turn this electric fire on."

Mong - "Hello there, my young apprentice, wait a minute before you do that, as I can see you are destined for great things if you listen very carefully to my advice!"

Me - "Erm, hello, strange looking man?"

Mong - "I can tell what you're thinking, how quickly does that electric fire heating element get hot, you can touch it when you first switch it on, won't feel hardly anything at all. I bet you want to put your finger on that heating element at the moment you switch on, go on, it won't hurt a bit!"

Me - "Mmmn, yeah, I'll give that a go.."

(Rather predictably) - ZzZAP!! "Aowww!"

Me - "You barsteward Mong, you didn't tell me that was going to happen! I can't feel my arm anymore!"

Mong - "Bwahahaharr! Gotcha!"

So with that little example to hand, time to expose some other little 'discussions' that the Emperor has had with some fellow Atariscene members...

For some reason, the first name that springs to my brain, is the young diskmag genius Eric Henschler, aka Moondog, aka 'Meundog', back in 1996 he was having some awkward dealings with a certain other diskmag. It seems that Mong was speaking a lot at that time too..

Mong - "Good evening, my young Eastern Paduwan, how are things with you?"

Moony - "Not so great lately with the Undercover, harsh words have been exchanged between ourselves, and the Maggie diskmag, it's looking a bit hairy, and frankly I'm at a loss for what to do next."

Mong - "I'd say keep attacking them, you don't deserve what they said, and if it were me, I'd want to hit them back twice as hard and bugger the consequences!"

Moony - "But if I don't choose what I'm saying very carefully, it could have a bad effect on the morale of the whole Atari scene, I really think we should tread very carefully here!"

Mong - "Look, are you a man or a spineless mouse?! Write what you feel is right, and sod what everyone else thinks. Since when have I ever let you down?"

Moony - "Well, there was the time you--"

Mong - "SILENCE WORM! DO NOT QUESTION ME AND DO AS I BID YOU!"

Moony - "Oh, alright then."

Mong - "That's better!"

Two weeks later, after the release of "Undercover - Death to Maggie special issue."

Moony - "Mong, you complete twot, the whole of the rest of the Atariscene hate me, and dread the coming of my next Undercover, what was I thinking letting you do this?!"

Mong - "Hawhaw! Sucker! No promises, no excuses, well it was something like that!"

The Emperor has been very free and easy with his careers advice too, take this conversation that he had with Mr Pink some years ago.

Mong - "Go on, take that game developer job. It's like what the nice man at Electronic Arts who interviewed you said, a couple of days a year when you get really busy when its deadline time, but you get loads of free time for your personal Atari stuff!"

Pink - "Yeah, alright, sounds good to me."

12 months later, when Pink staggers in through his front door after working 72 hours straight through, a not uncommon occurence by then.

Pink - "Grrr I'm shagged out, it's a blummin' sweatshop there, you arsewhole Mong! To think I ever listened to you!"

A faint but distinctive chuckle can be heard.....

Mong has spoken to me on several occasions of course, here are a few brief extracts of his dubious advice to me down the years..

"That cover picture for Maggie 19 is the dogs testicles, doesn't look at all bodged in any way!"

"The other contributors know when you say 'deadline', you mean 'deadline'! Especially that Mr Pink!"

"Of course you'll get the 10th anniversary issue of Maggie out on time!"

"Why not write a history of the whole Atari demoscene, you'll get loads of people wanting to add their views, look it'll practically write itself!"

"That Nemesis upgrade looks like a piece of piss for someone to self- install"(!!)

And my personal favourite. "Your sleeping bag will be warm enough for the demo party, it's not as if you're going to be sleeping in a tent now, is it?"

Mong can even appear in disguise to the unwary, as he materialised himself in the form of Evil on the atariscne channel on IRC. Whilst in that Swedish disguise, he spake these fateful words to me in confidence "Mekka Symposium 2002 will be a cool party to attend, even if it is a Peecee scener event. There's going to be three new Atari demos released there!" If it was not the evil Emperor in disguise, then I guess we have to consider whether Mong had fooled Evil a bit earlier on that evening?

And Mong appeared once more in disguise to me and Felice, whilst on the way to that fateful party, at the Stena Line checking-in desk in Harwich.

Mong -"Ah, good morning dishevilled and delayed travellers, I see you just missed the morning ferry due to the mongish behaviour of all those other drivers who had accidents and closed roads. Never mind, I'll book you onto the late ferry. Don't worry about killing time, there's loads to see and do in old Harwich town!"

Several hours later...

Me - "Dammit, this place is Chavtown, a few years before the term is due to be invented! Thanks for zilch, Mong you basturd!"

Mong even tried to play around with me in the course of my writing this text. At one point, a wrongful combination of shift and control and other keys at the edges of this peecee keyboard wiped the entire text from this page, leaving the single word "Mong" in its place. Fortunately I had taken the basic precaution of frequent saving, so there was not a lot lost. However, when going to reopen the textfile, the Emperor stepped in, offering to save this pitifully destroyed text in place of the complete original, but I was alert and managed to resist this temptation!

Mong - "Curses, I was so looking forward to your having to write the whole article again from scratch. I'll get you next time though, CiH!"

I've found pictorial evidence of 1995's greatest hint from Mong - "Go on, have a 5th Maggie birthday party at your small apartment, it'll be a blast!" - Yes that is me in 1995!

And that is just taking five minutes to see what would skim from the top of my brain. There's probably a whole article's worth if I stopped to think for a bit longer, but this article isn't just about my Mongish encounters, right?

Anyway, back to see what he's being saying to the rest of you!

Mong speaks words of confusion, cunningly disguised as words of assistance to unfortunate party organisers, looking for help.

Mong - "Hello tall Dutch person, looking forward to Outline are we?"

Havoc -"Oh it's you again, didn't I tell you I wasn't interested after the last time?"

Mong - "Have faith in me, O' pitiful fool, I can tell by the worry-lines on your brow, that things aren't quite alright. At least tell me what's wrong, a problem shared is a problem halved and all that?"

Havoc - "It's usually a problem doubled when you're on the case, still, can't do any harm to tell you. It's the soddin' pizza delivery service, they don't want to handle the sort of bulk orders that come from a party like Outline. I'm looking all over the place for an alternative, but good pizza suppliers don't grow on trees you know!"

Mong - "Ha ha, indeed they don't, but I think you might find that these (Proffers New York Pizza menu) will be able to get their orders in there extra quick, none of that waiting around for hours like the last time!"

Havoc - "Hmm, I'm not sure about this, the menu looks like it's from the people we had problems with the time before that, but I guess it can't do any harm to try them again..."

Mong - "That's the spirit, when have I ever let you down?"

Havoc - "Well, there was the time you---"

Mong - "We-ell, must be off now! Have a good party!"

Cut forward to the Outline party, that first evening, and four hours and counting for the pizza delivery..

Mong - "Ahh, the rumbling of empty stomachs, and wailing of the starving multitudes, music to my ears!"

Havoc - "Mong, if I wasn't so chilled out from smoking the cigarettes with the 'special' tobacco, I'd kill yer!"

Mong has been active in other parts of the demoscene, he doesn't just pick on us luckless Atarians, here's the conversation he had some years ago with Adok, the trainee Austrian running the Hugi diskmag.

Mong - "Adok, my Austrian chum, so how goes it with your Hugi diskmag?"

Adok - "Not so bad, but we're getting a little bit stale here. We could really do with some new directions and talent."

Mong - "Well as it happens, I can help you there, there's a chap called Emmanuel Poirer, or 'EP' for short, he's been around on the old Amiga scene, wants to get back into things, and he has some, shall we say, interesting views on the current demoscene. He'd be a most valuable addition to the Hugi team!"

Adok - "Gee thanks! That would be great! And it's not like he's a stalker or weird, or anything like that?"

Mong - "No noo, he's completely normal! With his help, Hugi is really going to be the major talking point for the demoscene from now on!" (Exits, chuckling to himself.)

Some rather traumatic events later, Mong returns to see how Adok is getting on...

Mong - "Hugi still going well is it?"

Adok - "Aaagh Mong, you kunt! Your wilfully wrong advice makes me want to lock someone up in a cellar and have several babies off them over a number of years!"

Mong - "Never mind, I've got another chap here, wants to write for you. He has some, shall we say interesting political views, a bit extreme but quite popular back in the day in certain places. That'll build your reputation right back up. That Maali chap will love you to bits!" (Exeunt to cackling laughter as Adok is snared YET AGAIN.)

And we can go to the typical Easter demo-party, where the Emperor manages to get his claws into a new crop of followers and wannabes, every bloody year!

Mong - "Hello young demo-scener, this is your first time going to a demo party, is it not?"

Young Scener - "Hiya Mong baby, yeah, I'm looking forward to it, the Mekka Breakpoint Gathering Revision will really rule. But I am going to go steady as it's my first time there. I'm not really a heavy drinker so as I know my limits, I'll stop before I get too tiddly."

Mong - "NO WAY! Do you want to come across as some kind of lemonade-drinking uncool lamer or what? You're only young once, and with my special Mong powers protecting you, no harm of the alcoholic variety will come to you for the entire party, not even if you are trying to keep up with Nosfe!"

"You will not get drunk at the fireside, no humiliating photo's of you with your pants around your ankles and lying in a pool of sick will ever appear in Slengpung. The Emperor Mong gives his word, so let's not hear any more of this 'taking things steady' talk!"

Young Scener - "No shit? Yeah, er great!"

Fast forward to 15.00hrs, the first day of the party, some random noises from the prostrated body of the very drunk scener in the car park gradually resolve themselves into something that can be almost understood...

Young Scener - "Bluuughhh! Hwoooarp! Ahhhgg! Y'basshtid Mong!"

Mong - "That's perfect, now don't go away, I'll go and get my camera! Mwahahaha!"

A very select few of Mong's apprentices manage to progress in their mongishness, and reach a state of what we might call 'Mongvana'. This is where the person concerned is a constant and total mong, but remains blissfully unaware of this, and is also even more serenely immune from the consequences.

Mong - "Moredhel, you have done mightily well, you have listened to me and acted on all of my commands. You are my most favoured apprentice, so I grant you this sacred state of Mongvana for the rest of your days. Go forth and speak constantly in the land of Pouet to share your wisdom!"

Moredhel - "Thank you, O' Master!"

Mong even turned up at the Tramiel era Atari Corporation Sunnyvale GHQ with the voice of a Mexican Bandito for some reason.

Mong - "Marketing, you don' need no steenking marketing!"

Assorted Tramiels - "Oh thank you, O' great Emperor, we will follow your instructions!"

Mong (whispers to himself) - "Oh this is just too easy!"

Mong 'advised' the management of Future Publishing about the operation of the not so obscure 'ST Floormat' magazine in the early nineties.

Mong - "Ho there, hi there Future Publishing dudes, how's things?"

Future - "We've got this pile of CV's for the new editor's job, it's a big job, I tell you!"

Mong - "Tell you what, throw away this half of the pile. (does so) That gets rid of the unlucky ones for a start. Now let's take a look at what's left. Ahh, this looks like a decent prospect, that Paula Richards!"

Future - "Actually, we looked at that one already, forget it, she's not got the experience, we were looking at sticking her on Cross-Stitch Monthly."

Mong - "Foolish mortals, heed my word! She's the one, I'm telling you! With her, ST Floormat will go on to the next century!"

Future - "Well okay, and if she doesn't work out, then there's always that Trenton Webb guy who can step in her place."

Mong - "Good luck, bwahahah!"

Exits mysteriously, a faint farty smell is left behind.

Disclaimer! - All accounts of alleged encounters with the Emperor Mong are fictional, with real life events altered to emphasise the comedic potential. Anything that actually happened like that is purely co-incidental!

CiH, originally for Alive Mag, June '08 - Relocated and tweaked a bit for the Mag in 2012..

Back to Humour.