CHAPTER I

Use the millennium as the basis for a round (Korea: Um, triangular?) table discussion called 101 Uses for an Expired Millennium. Invite the following characters to participate:

John: Tall, skinny, writer and singer. Instigator of the discussion to follow. Loves animals, women, solitude.
Israel: Average build, African-American skin, strong nose, weak chin. Easily antagonized. Feigns indifference to animals, loves poker.
Korea: Dog, probably coon-hound. Feigns indifference to people, afraid of the dark. Sleeps on the bed whenever possible, steals the covers. Amateur psychic. Stickler for details. Talks.

CHAPTER 2 

USE YOUR SKILLS

Well, I've been writing a fair amount of poetry and fiction lately, but nobody has been buying it. To be fair, I haven't offered it to anybody, but one has a sense about these things. My temporary failure has been cause for much reflection, and in the course of same I realized I had been ignoring the genre which, so to speak, led me to the trough of literature in the first place. I speak, of course of the genre popularly known as 101 Uses.

The seminal work in this category is of course 101 Uses for a Dead Cat, and this was the work which first attracted my attention. It was nothing more than a chance Christmas gift, if you can imagine, and before I knew what was happening I was transported into a thrilling and arcane world in which nothing was what it seemed to be, in which cats could become candlesticks and--why not?--beggars, Kings.

Humbly, then, I venture to add my little work to the 101 Uses pantheon. I aspire simply to be a little voice from the corner, to say in effect that I know something for which there are 101 Uses, and nothing more. You, beloved reader, are free to come and go as you choose. No one Use can have primacy over another (except Use 47, that's a really good one) for they are all but suggestions. You may want to read randomly, as though in 101 Uses for the I Ching. Though I don't see any point in using coins or yarrow stalks to dictate your choices in this case, that would just be silly.

CHAPTER 3 

1. If the millennium still smells fresh, it can probably be used for a week or so past the expiration. 

CHAPTER 4 

2. Place the millennium, Crusades side up, in a can half full of congealed gelatin. Every time someone runs out the bottom and screams that the end of the decade isn't until 2001, it will make pretty patterns, and the gelatin will shudder in an amusing way. It will also dampen the sound so that you needn't be troubled by the actual content of the message. When the whole mess begins to putrefy, take it out in the middle of the night and slip it into a landfill. Any remaining gelatin makes great toys for the kids. 

CHAPTER 5

3. Turn the millennium upside-down and fill the interior with the bodies of those who have been killed in the name of God. This will be the ark of our true guilt. Float the millennium into space to meet up with extra-terrestrials or the sun (just slightly in advance of our own rendezvous) and hope for divine compassion.

Israel: Jesus Christ, John. Just gimme the Kool-Aid now and get it over with. 
Korea: I don't get it.

CHAPTER 6 

4. Slice the millennium into even sections and frappe, one by one. Just for the fun of it. 

CHAPTER 7 

5. If the millennium has done you wrong, get even by cursing it and all of its descendants throughout time immemorial. 

CHAPTER 8 

6. If the millennium has smiled kindly upon you, show your appreciation by tying a big red bow around its neck and finding it a playmate, say a Jack Russell Terrier, for Christmas. 

CHAPTER 9 

7. Erect a monument in your neighborhood commemorating April 23, 1616, when the millennium misplaced the lives of both William Shakespeare, who many believe to have been Francis Bacon, and Miguel de Cervantes, not only the title character in ''Man of La Mancha'' but also the author of Don Quixote. 

CHAPTER 10 

8 .If you can afford the consequences, do not teach your computer how to read the new triple 0 date. The resulting confusion might be just the environmental stimulus needed to catapult her across the intuitive gulf separating the fully electronic from the fully human. 

CHAPTER 11 

Bankrupt

9.  There will be an ever increasing number of those for whom one location is unsatisfactory. Just as the skyscraper is becoming obsolete in the age of the computer and the FAX machine, so too will single communities become obsolete in the global village. People no longer need to congregate physically in order to work together, and the result will be a desire for many communities, spread out over multiple regions and continents.

Korea: I wish I'd said that. 
Israel: Shut up, Korea. Who ever heard of a dog in a round table discussion anyway?
John: Hey, that's my dog you're talking to, fella. 
Korea: ...and ownership will become obsolete, particularly ownership of one living thing by another... 
Israel: See that? He comes on like Nostradamus' dog or some shit, and expects us to be all impressed by his dog wisdom. And by the way, that last one didn't sound like a "Use'' to me. 
Korea: Just rephrase it, like this: ''Become global. Fuck ownership.'' 
Israel: Perfect. And keep your dog prophecies to yourself. 
John: It's OK, Korea. It's my book, contribute what you want. 
Israel: Some democracy. 
John: May I continue? 

CHAPTER 12 

10. Allow the millennium to subvert your dreams of children. You have loved animals, real and stuffed, plants, other people's children, your car, your living spaces, all as though you had brought them into the world with someone you love, so why not pretend that the millennium is your ultimate creation? Make the new millennium a time for total renunciation of even the potential for responsibility.

Korea: Are you trying to say that you love me? 
Israel: Why not shove the millennium up your ass? 

CHAPTER 13 

11. Wrap the millennium up in all the plastic grocery bags you've ever thrown away. Double-bag it, they break easily. 

CHAPTER 14 

12. Give the millennium to a friend in 2001 instead of a Christmas fruitcake. The friend can give it back in 2002 and you can argue about whose gift was the more significant.

Israel: Fruitcake? I thought that was some kind of dog food you gave me by mistake. 
Korea: Very funny. I'm still expecting new sheets. 
John: You will let me know if you have anything besides bitching to contribute? 
Korea: Yeah, sure. 
Israel: Absolutely. 

CHAPTER 15 

13. Sell the millennium as scrap so that you can pay your rent for a month. I know a good scrap guy in Oakland who'll give me $100 for a 1982 Jeep CJ7 that won't run, so the millennium should be worth more than that. Maybe it will pay for two months.

Israel: Whadda you live in Oakland for anyway, white boy? 
John: Some kind of law against being white and living in Oakland? Some zoning ordinance? 
Israel: No, but most of the people you live by are black, aren't they? 
John: Yeah. 
Israel: So what are you trying to prove, how much you love us? Do you even know any of them? 
John: I know two black people in my neighborhood. Three. No, four, if you count homeless. The manager of my building, the guy who lives across the street, the guy who tried to sell me a Beatles album today, and the black half of a homeless interracial couple who collect bottles, plus whatever they find in my car. 
Israel: Four people in the whole neighborhood. 
John: I'm not that gregarious. 
Israel: Maybe you would be, if your neighbors were all white. 
Korea: No, he never knows anybody. He's lived right next to beautiful white women for years without ever introducing himself. 
John: Thanks. 
Israel: Man, you are helpless. You oughta get out a little more. 
John: Who'd watch Korea? 
Israel: Watch him do what, make a sandwich and look at the news? Read the Wall Street Journal? That talking dog needs a babysitter like a baseball needs a toothbrush. 
Korea: I'm with him on this one, John. 
Israel: See? He's smarter than he looks. Hey! Get off me! 
John: Down, boy. 
Korea: Down this. 
John: Nice going. Now you've turned him against both of us.

CHAPTER 16 

14. Roll the millennium into a tube and beat your dog with it.

John: I'm kidding! Come on, come back. I'm sorry. 
Israel: Man, that dog's got you whipped. 
Korea: I heard that.

CHAPTER 17 

15. Do the environmentally responsible thing by recycling the millennium. It can be made into a comfortable and attractive protective wrap to shield our delicate hands from the new millennium. And so on. If your community does not yet have millennium recycling, go door-to-door collecting signatures to force your local recycling company to do whatever it takes. 

CHAPTER 18 

16. Divide the millennium into electoral colleges, without regard to length of time or population, and then make really important decisions using the resulting formulas. The millennium may not thank you for it, but you'll definitely be remembered.

Korea: If that's supposed to be some kind kind of Bush joke, I voted for Nader. 
John: Who did you vote for if it's a Nader joke? 

CHAPTER 19 

17. Sit comfortably on a cushion with your legs crossed. As you breathe, think of nothing but the air flowing in and out of your body, and the millennium. Let it be one continuous motion, in and out, in and out. As the cares of the day come into your mind, acknowledge them and then let them go, returning your attention to your breathing and the millennium. If your legs begin to hurt, allow the thought of them hurting to just drift past your consciousness, and then let it go, always coming back to your breathing and the millennium. Now, picture the millennium as your breath, as you continue to breathe in and out in a fluid motion. Exhale the Salem witch trials, the Space Shuttle Discovery, the Renaissance. Inhale Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, inhale the Black Plague, inhale Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin. Exhale the Concorde and the Food and Drug Administration. Inhale Friedrich Nietzsche. Good. 

CHAPTER 20 

18. Express the millennium using Microsoft Works. Your title won't be centered over your text, but there will be lots of pretty dotted lines to guide you while you type. Consider how fundamentally good life is. 

CHAPTER 21 

19. It's just possible that the millennium doesn't like you. If that's the case there's no reason to be ashamed of stabbing the millennium in the back the first chance you get. After all, no millennium lasts forever, and you may get on better with the next one. 

CHAPTER 22 

20. I know it's weird, but since I was a kid I've enjoyed peanut butter and millennium sandwiches. They're much better if you use the sweet millenniums. The other ones are really disgusting. 

CHAPTER 23 

21.  Where, oh where has my little millennium gone Oh where, oh where can it be? With it's years so short and it's Reformation so long Oh where...

Israel: I got your millennium right here. Korea's crying. 
Korea: I am not! It's just a really sad song, that's all. Plus, that's how coon-hounds are supposed to look. 
Israel: Got that hang-dog look about you. Heh-heh. 
Korea: I believe that expression was coined for the Bassett Hound. 
John: I think you're cute. 
Israel: Oh, you two got a little something going on I don't know about? 
Korea: Yeah, friendship, you ever heard of it? 
John: I'm still waiting for constructive suggestions. Anybody? 

CHAPTER 24 

22. Korea: Put the millennium on a train for Vegas, and bury it near a residential area so that it doesn't take as long to seep into the water supply.

CHAPTER 24 

23. Take the 26 wars of the millennium which resulted in the greatest number of casualties and assign each a letter of the English alphabet. World War Two is A, World War One is B, Vietnam is C, the Crusades are D through N, and so on. Now translate the alphabet into German, and whichever war ends up associated with an umlaut, pretend it never happened.

Israel: Shit, man, half of those wars did never happen. 
Korea: Which half? 
Israel: Like the Boer Wars, those were nothing but armed insurrections. Vietnam was another one. 
Korea: I had no idea you had such a profound interest in semantics. 
Israel: I'm giving you the idea. 
Korea: Dogs only fight when they have to. 
Israel: Yeah, like when the mail gets delivered. 
John: Ahem.

CHAPTER 25 

24-31. Pawn the millennium off on an unsuspecting public through the use of contemporary advertising techniques, like the infomercial. Think up some catchy slogans to make it more palatable to the masses. Like "Own a slice of time."

Israel: (finally amused) Yeah, or "Ten centuries of our very best." 
Korea: (giggling) "What dogs want." 
Israel: (laughing in spite of himself) "Be the first on your block to have one." 
John: "Gomorrah or Sodom, this baby's got 'em." 
Israel: Stop! You're killing me. 
Korea: (flat on his back with mirth) "Fortified with essential vitamins and nutrients, for the life of your family." 
Israel: "1000 years or your money back." 
John: "We'll meet or beat any price you can find, and we'll throw in another decade at no extra charge!" 
Korea: (wiping tears from his eyes) OK, I give up. 
Israel: I don't know what I'm laughing about. What's next?

CHAPTER 26 

32. Separate the millennium into small pieces containing no more than one idea or event each, and store them in the basement as ammunition to throw at people you don't like because they are different from you. This morning I tossed the Inquisition at the milkman and boy was he startled.

Korea: We don't have a basement. 
John: I was speaking figuratively. 
Korea: The basement would be the sewer. Would you store the millennium in the sewer? (All three mull this over as a serious possibility)

CHAPTER 27

33. Dress the millennium up in tight pants and no shirt and start a rock and roll band with it. I'll be the drummer. The millennium is better on bass.

Korea: We don't have a milkman, either. 
John: Would you drop it? 
Korea: Sure, you want me to roll over, too? Shake? 
John: That's not what I meant. 
Israel: Touchy.

CHAPTER 28 

34. Wash that millennium right outta your hair with Prell ™ by Procter & Gamble, Cincinnati, OH 45202.

Israel: This is just getting stupid. 
John: I'm still waiting for suggestions. 
Israel: I had one, you declined to use it. 
John: Oh, all right.

CHAPTER 29 

35. "Why don't you shove the millennium up your ass." Israel.

Israel: Heh-heh. Heh-hehe. That wasn't the one I meant. 
John: Oh.

CHAPTER 30 

36. Israel: Pretend your book collection is the millennium and organize it chronologically so nobody who just wants to read something including you can ever find a goddamn thing.

John: Hey! Be lucky I let you borrow shit in the first place. 
Korea: John, I have a confession to make. 
John: Uh-oh. 
Korea: I think I might have accidentally put The Count of Monte Cristo where The Age of Louis XIV should have been. 
John: WHAT?! 
Korea: I can't help it! I don't have opposable thumbs! 
Israel: You don't have opposable nothin. 
Korea: Shut up dog-hater. How's your little cat? Seen her lately? 
Israel: You better be kidding, coon-hound. 
John: OK, I think I'm the injured party here, but I forgive you Korea. 
Israel: Wow. What a Christian.

CHAPTER 31 

37. Think of the millennium as credit card debt. As long as you admit it happened once a month or so, there's no need to get uptight about it. If you die before it's completely taken care of, your relatives can resolve the millennium question with the help of Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

CHAPTER 32 

38. Mix the millennium in a shaker with equal parts Drambuie and Limoncello for a spiffy Molotov cocktail. Finish with two onions and a hearse.

Korea: That one was a little morbid. 
Israel: Oh, like "the ark of our true guilt," that's not morbid? 
Korea: I didn't say that. 
John: Smiles, my friends, smiles! Now, back to the task. 
Israel: Do we really have to sit through a hundred of these things? 
John: Dude, that's the genre. 
Korea: 101. 
Israel: Whatever, I'm gonna need a razor blade before that. 
Korea: What for?

CHAPTER 33 

39. Try to understand the millennium by dissecting the word "millennium." Think of the root "mill" as in "million," or a thousand thousands. Think of the suffix "-ium" as in "titanium," or made from the stuff of titans. Think of the [neither prefix nor suffix] "len" as in "Lenny and Squiggy" from the hit comedy series "Laverne and Shirley," produced by Aaron Spelling, or Ellen DeGeneres the gay TV star, or Lenny the retard from Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, or the lens of a microscope (is that plural?) or can you lend me some money? So we can conclude that under close examination the millennium looks like a thousand titans acting like idiots on gay TV. Can you lend me some money?

CHAPTER 34 

40. That dead cat book had too many uses anyway. It started to get redundant, and nobody really hates cats that much except Korea.

Korea: I've actually reached the candlestick one in my basement laboratory. 
Israel: WITH WHOSE CAT? 
John: Relax, buddy, we don't have a basement. 
Korea: I was speaking figuratively.

CHAPTER 35 

41. If the millennium were an atom, would the specific gravity of the Theory of Relativity alter the visible position of the electrons around the nucleus?

Israel: What kind of friggin question is that, Einstein? 
John: Just a pet theory of mine. 
Korea: I forgive you preemptively of your inevitable apology for using that word. John: Theory?

CHAPTER 36 

42. Take the bus to Des Moines. Walk down the street with the millennium in your pocket and whistle a happy tune.

CHAPTER 37 

43. Put the millennium on the music stand and take out your trombone. What will it sound like? Shoenberg or Don McLean? Gregorian chant? Play the millennium in the style of a Strauss Waltz, say the Blue Danube. Don't you feel better?

CHAPTER 38 

44. If the millennium were money, would you spend it all on Malt Liquor? Would you put it in the bank and let it collect interest until it grew into the next millennium? Or would you put it in your pocket and ride the New York subway, giving it to all who asked, until it was gone? No, I wouldn't either. I'd wave it in the face of the underprivileged just to show them who was boss. I'm like that.

Israel: You would? 
John: I was being sarcastic. 
Israel: Oh, man, you had me going there for a second. 
Korea: I thought dogs were supposed to be gullible.

CHAPTER 39 

45. Sing the millennium to the tune "Smoke on the Water."

CHAPTER 40 

46. But soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the millennium. Arise, fair millennium, and kill the envious moon Who is already sick and pale with grief That thou her millennium art far more fair than she: Be not her millennium, since she is envious; Her vestal livery is but sick and green And none but fools do wear it, cast it off. It is my millennium, O, it is my love!

John: You know, he died the same day as Cervantes. 
Israel: You mentioned that. 
John: April 23, 1616. 
Israel: That, too.

CHAPTER 41 

47. Cut a nice birch limb, take the millennium out behind the barn and wallop it within an inch of its life for smoking. There's nothing like a good thrashing to teach the millennium to behave itself, even in retrospect.

CHAPTER 42

48. If only the millennium could have covered the World Trade Center like a glove. Like an invisible, airplane-proof glove. Or even better, if those 1000 years of history could have taught us something about being human.

Israel: Hear, hear, man. 
Korea: Maybe we should stop at, say, 50. 
John: OK.

CHAPTER 43 

49. Teach the millennium in school. Not just what happened, that's too easy. Try to make some judgments about what it meant and how it can be prevented from happening again in the same way. Emphasize the good parts. Emphasize the good people. Move on.

CHAPTER 44 

50. What use is it? It's the last use. There's no really profound way to end a little book like this. I don't really want you to shove the millennium up your ass. Maybe just put it there in the middle of the room and light a couple candles. Now think: History makes us all what we are now, but it doesn't necessarily condemn us to stay that way. That's my last chapter. Cheers.

Israel: Wait, I have one. 
Korea: Too late. 
Israel: Aw, man. Well, let's do it again sometime. John, you got any beer?