January 1987 Number24 HA!P!Prt NEW rtEAJR!?! So Who's Happy?

December 24, 1986

In Roman days they called thts the Saturnalia: seven days of feasting, drinlctng, and general debauchery that raged, as Dylan Thomas w.ould have it, against thl dying of the ltght. What started out as prayerful suppltcatto1& to th, gods and godusses ended a week later in . an orgy of mindless dissipation, and things have not changed much in the intervening 20 centuries.

Saturn was the grandfather of th, gods, and represented the limitations imposed by the physical, mor.tal world. As such he was the appropriatl deity to preside over a festival that commemorated, above all else, human frailty. The Judaeo-Christian version of the Midwinter/est has borrowed much of its imagery from ancient pagan rituals, but then it sho"1dn't take a great deal of insight to realize that the trappings of modern civilization are just that, trappings, and that th, primal impulses of humankind have been only marginally impeded by th, combined efforts of all the ___..____ _ shamans, witch doctors, priests, and theologians of history. Whln we seek respite from our cares Religion and its modern stepsister, and woes through drinlc, drugs, overeating, or other science, ostensibly operate from a common premise, assassinations of our physical and mental. health, we one best expressed by the words attributed to Jesus confess to ourselves and the world at large that the of Nazareth: HYou shall know th, truth and the truth path of righteousness and/or reason, noble as it may shall make you free. H But both obscure as much as sound in principle, has failed in its· most vital, in they illuminate; science, by encouraging th, delusion fact, its only real purpose, that of leading us to that man can, by gaining sufficient knowledge, happinesss. become master of his own destiny, and religion, by maintaining that such a notion is vain and even HHappy New Year, H we fervently wish blasphemous. each other, but in the midst of the jollity people /cill,

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maim, and debase themselves and others at a pace to happiness lies in finding just the right mixture of that, if anything, exceeds that of less festive times. involvement and detachment, of caring compassion To a dispassionate observer, the antics of a roomful of and enlightened self-interest, of love and not a little holiday revelers could be seen as the contorted lust, all heavily leavened with a hilarious sense of 't!rithings of souls trapped in the bowels of hell the absurd. itself; the shouts of laughter only a few decibels re"!ove� /�om. desperate screams, and the happy That's as close as I've been able to smzles zn zmmznent danger of freezing into tortured come to a formula for being happy, and sometimes it's grimaces. even worked for me. Whatever works for you, I wish you plenty of it. . It would be easy to take a similarly sour view of any number of human activities thought to make life worthwhile or at least bearable; sex A LETTER TO MY READERS andlf?r love are obvious examples. But then it's possible to put the worst face on anything,· assuming· Youmight have noticed that this issue is fairly lale, that some form of human happiness ts attainable, is and there's a reasonfor that. Infact. it almostdidn't get done at all. and anyone getting any? up until afewdays ago. I WISready to announce thatit wouldbe the lastLOOKOUT. Whatchanged my� WIS going to thepostoffice aftercouple a of weeks away md finding it crammedwith 1eum . If freedom from pain and want were by thankingfor me my efforts, praising meformy work, andencouraging itself enough to ensure happiness, there ought to be a meto keep it up. Iair number of contented people around at any given It'snot the first time my readers have savedme time. Likewise, if comfort and l,aury could deliver fromgiving up in fruslrationdespair. anii and I wmt to thank allof you on their promise, the streets of our cities should be who wroreto let meknow that was I actually reaching someoneout awash with smiling faces. But the joys of life are there. Butdespire my renewed energy enthusiasm., and I havedecided found, when at all, in small and unexpected places, tomake somechanges my in approach totheU)OKOUT, so.whileI haveyour atr.mUion., letme rellyou aboutthem. and what passes for pleasure ts, as often as not, only When I started thewss U)OKOUT,I atwhat a prelude to far greater pain. seemedto be abit of a dead endmy in life. Tryingto recuperare from a disastrous loveaffair, sining alone ofon top a iemoreout mountain. of Philosophers and priests, and the sight andnearly mindof everyoneI had once beento, close and with a furUS of a thousand disciplines speak of things like worldof time to broodaboutthe statedire of our· planet andthe inner peace and enlighte111Mnt and becoming one with perilously &agileit, lifefonnsinhabiting I used andxerox to the universe; here, they promise, lies the way to cry out stillthat I cared. andout toreach to what�called. happiness. Not so, say others; we can gain happiness ".-thec:oumles s c:onfused. accused.misused,strung out ones and worse.•• " only inasmuch as we share it with our fellow My life's stillharder would thinI like it to be, creatures, and that can best be done by transforming desperar&lylonely at times,with andfilled frustration how at little seem I the world into a better place. ableto accomplish. But my problems uemostly in my head. and minusc:ulecompared to those facedby vastnumbers of theworld's But in attempting that task we invite people. Tbmughwriting andplaying music mdmeeting hundreds of frustration and madness, claim the mystics and othersdoing similar things. I've been ableto findmy innersttmigth and $J)iritualists, to whom the material world is merely to learnrm that neither alonehelpless. nor Yes, inthe face of alllogical an illusion. Everything we touch, everything we feel indicat.ions to thecontrary, rm stillfilled with hopes and dreamsfor the future, andfve Ihopethat beenable to impiresome of you to feel the and see, even our bodies themselves do not really same. exist; they are the elaborate projections of the one What all thisis leadingup tois thatWOKOUT the infinite mind which we all share. To try and have an willno longerregular bea monthly publication. Instead, it willcome effect on the imaginary outer world is like swimming out wheneverI have something to say. There's no tellingright now in quicksand. howoften that willbe, though it's reasonable to suspectthat it will be less oftenthin it has been. [hope todo some travelling, and ofmore One would assume, then, that those mr. energywill be going intomy band. my work with things likethe GilmanSireet Warehouse Project, friends mdfamily. andmy own places where such a philosophy predominates, India, peaceof mmd. But theLOOKOUT will not disappear; it's meant far too most notable among them, would be among the muchIO me and, appamuly. to otherpeople, to let it die. happiest on this otherwise star-crossed planet. Perhaps people do starve more contentedly there, but What this meansforcumnt subscribers: you'llstill '!'Y western mi� will not allow me to accept that this receivehowever many issues remainit onyoursubscription; justm ight take a littlelonger. If thisis not satisfactory,just wrire tome md111 is the way things should be. Indeed, the happiest I nmmdwhatever money you havecoming. There will alsobe achange have ever been is when I have succeeded in having an foranyone wishingto subscn'bein the future. Because mostissues impact, however small, on the world around me. fromnow on will.like this one. have morepages thin the traditional 10, Whether to persuade someone to fall in love with me, printing and postagecosts willbe higher. So startingnow, or to teach a child a new word or how to use a pair of subscriptions willbe Sl.00 an issue,regardless of how few or many chopsticks, or to be told that my writing has changed you order. Letme stress, this doesmtt affectcurrent subscribers. And, the way a person thinks, these are the tiny victories IS always.the U)OKOUT will beavailable freevarious at locations in that have given me strength to continue through the MendocinoCounty md theSan Francisco Bay Area. So let me say again, thanks forall your support and years. response. andIhopethat with lesspressure fromdeadlines andself­ imposedexpectations, theU)OKOUT will continue togrow and become Happiness? I don't claim to know what even better. And please, don't forget to let me knowwhat you. think. that is, anymore than I have discovered the meaning of love, or truth, or freedom, nor any of the other Yourediror pal, and shining stars to which we casually hitch our Lawrence destinies. I do know, or at least suspect, that the way

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pillarsupon which civilization itself, and all the environment wiU foulup life forthe tree-taller Lawrence, blessings that flow therefrom, rest? as well and encourages the woodworkers to Fortunately the malcontented and participate in the process of change. A Saw an article byyou in Joe Britz's From Rathouse maladjusted misfits who make up your tiny boycottof redwood products has been put in zine Ta/es the called "Low constituency are an ever-diminishing effect, thelnl8mational Indian Treaty Council Society· and thought your point about minority. All indications are that most young is participating in our rallies, and lawsuits people in the scene becoming so blase people today are returning to traditional againstvarious offenders are being drawn up about corpor;i.te takeovers happening within values. Your leather-jacketed, jackbooted presently. and all around the scene is a phenomenon hooligans are overwhelmingly outnumbered Thanks to a computer/ print shop, whichlives and breeds (like a million maggots by clean-cut young men and women in suits we have published brochures and in a· pileof shit) herein NewYor1< City, too. newsletters on Maxxam, the boycott, Save Lots of so-called alternative media and ties who are getting the wheels of the Loggers League, and a Mendocino types, mostnotably the Alternaliw Pressand commerce and industry turning smoothly NationalForest EarthFirst alternativeplan. All Radio Council (APRC), seem to be losing once more. For God's sake, Mr. Livermore, these materials are available to the general sight of the fact that Chris Williamson (Nsw wake up and get in step before the public. York punk rockpromoter of Ritz/Rock Hotel .•• ED.) juggernaut of progress runs right over you. On the national Earth First! scene, fame is responsible for the profit Time is short and the vengeance of the Earth First! has been in five magazines, motive becoming so strong in the NY scene people is long. including the cover story of Image, as well by allowing only those bands to play at his asEsquire Omni, Whole Earth Review, and shows that will relinquish control of their an Arnold Rassmussen MotherJones. Thereare folkssome who feel form or any sense they might have had of Loa Angeles doing something to change things. They just that a high profile constitues some kind of get lost in all this because money is all that spiritual sellout But a high profile can also matters. Shit, guys like him and the yuppies consti1Ute sharing of information with others invading, that's not dissimilar, either. As writer of best letter so that they can learn and know their the I've alternatives. Anyway,take cant. I'm sending you someof ftlCllilltld all year, you'"9 been awarded a the latest zines fromthisend in exchange for lifetime subscription the LOOKOUT. 171 We have seen six EF! groups to emerge where there were none: at UC reviewor a lookat what you're doing. I would send your copies to you at th• hospital; I reviewanything sent in BadNewz #5, outlate presums you1I Berkeley, Guerneville, Mendocino, Ukiah, be there forthe foreseeable Gart>erville, andArcata. This is no accident February, featuring a big article on fuan? GOVERNMENT ISSUE. They were fuckin Earth F"ntl , as it so describesitself, truly is a hotthis last lime at CBs. Whata greatband. movement. Each individual is accountable firstlyhimself. toher/ Becauseof thelack of imposed hierarchy, cooperation between BobZ De• Editor, Bad Newz zine groups is fostered organically. There � no NewYor1< bosses, except thatwe areour own guides. Earth First! would like to offer a What makes all of the above synopsis of itscanyings-on in the lastquarter expecially encouraging, if not downright of 1986. September marked the inception of fantastic, is that this has all occ:urred within Dear Mr .. Livermore (though I'm willing to bet our tri-county coalition (Mendocino, that isn1 your realname): the last three and a half months. Ecotopia Humboldt, and Sonoma). Out of that first Earth F"ntlis emerging. Giveus a callat (707) rendezvous came six rallies, all highly 923-2931 or 13 in Garberville to learnwhat is What could possibly possess you publicized, including national coverge by to waste time, money and paper on this going on and send donations to help us pay McNeil-Lehrerand CableNews Network. The our $1000 debt for the last three and a half pathetically laughable "zine• of yours? The demonstrations targeted Bureau of Land attitudes with which you persist in months of madness to: EF!, Box 397, Management(BLM) in Ukiah concerningtheir Garberville CA 95440. No compromise in bludgeoning your readers might have �n . Eden Valley / Thatcher Ridge Wilderness defense of Mother Earth! mildly amusing 1n the 1960s when this rejection; Bank of America in Arcata country was going through a protracted concerning their financing the destruction of In peace, adolescence, but, as you have obviously the world's rain forests; Maxxam / Pacific failed to notice, America has long since Darryl Cherney Lumber in San Francisco, Arcata, andScotia GarbelVille grown up, leaving you and your minuscule concerning their doubling of timber handful of followersbaying pointlessly at the harvesting of old growth; and U.S. Forest moon. Service in Ukiahconcerning their clearcutting Dear Lawrence deLivermore, Your ignorant, malicious, and plan for Mendocino National Forest. These slanderous attacks on the President of the events made their way to the front pages of United States are unconscionable, and in any Examiner, Chronicle, Times-Standard, This isn't really a letter to the the LOOKOUT but kind of a letter to Ta/esFrom sane society would result in your prosecution Pf9ss-Democrat, Humboldt Beacon, Ukiah the Rathouse and imprisonment. The preservation of DailyJoumal which you cannot extricate and more, along with massive yourself from since you live at the Rathouse freedom can only be hindered by the TV and radio coverage and interviews on granting of unlimited license to social part-time. I want to applaud and marvel at variousshows. Joe's comment on how zines lessen the d.eviants such as yourself. Your An Earth First! investigation of blasphemous assaults against rel gion are, if feeling of isolation between us all ( sorry to ! corruption in the California Department of those of you less fortunates who only have anything, even more reprehensible. Your Foreslly is underway and a barrage of letters vocabulary and style of writing would seemto to send a stamp to Box 14292, SF 94114 to you is being received by CDF challenging their receive this ·tree· rag). It's a wonderment to indicate that have had at least a timber harvest plan approvals. The Save the smattering of educaton; how could you not me how people can actually get togetherand Loggers League has been formed to present collaborate to do something constructive be aware that church and state are the twin how large corporations destroying. ��e

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has,· for the most part, been so co-opted by together (I guess bands do it all the time). need a bit more in terms of IJli1lll:iil if you want special interests (the aforementioned I'm real lonely (and confused). to attract more $10 subscription checks: So· corporations, mosdy, the great majority of Lately I've wandered into the Anonymous I'll send you some stuff. Right now all I've got . which - being "big business" -- are is two book reviews, a fittlemoney, and a case meetings that are he!d �II over town 8!1d unabashedly in favor of the current country and basically it's Just people getting of writer's block. Things should improve by Republican regime) that truth is up for grabs. together and supporting each other's honest Christmas. The statement "all the news that's fit 10 prinr and open feelings. The first few steps are Thanks for trying again - the post is laughable. The only thing thatought to be admitting that Hfe canbe very unmanageabl!I office has been fucked of recenl "fit to print• is the 1C!Ub. about what these at times without help from ... what? Cosmic people are doing, and when newspapers can Sources? Internal Godhead? The real power Samuel Day Fassbinder get away with using words like comes from people helping other people. Santa Cruz CA "disinformation" and treating them as There is nothing 10 special as that and I just legitimate government poHcy without blinking want to say I'm grateful for FRIENDS, an eye or even smirking, those newspapers ephemeral or long-term (we STILL don't are hardly fit to read any more. Just once Thanks, but your book reviews (and I fantasize about these sorts of things), know each other). . Sorry this is so sappy fron meagam remindme of the sortof stuffI ussd to hate I'd like to read in some mainstream but at leut I know I'm sappy and copto il I having to write back·when I was in college. newspaper, "The President lied again · like going to hearpeople talkabout theirlivas Anyway, rm not reallyinterested in attracting today.• ." But I digress. The caption under because it enriches my own life. lrs b"ke $10 subscription checks; the more the picture of Raygun and Spooks was listening tolyrics or readingthe newspaper .. . I subscribers I get, themore guilty I feelfor not precious, andthe whole articlewas extremely know a lot of people feel the same way I do · getting this rag out on time. And the whole . well writtan. I do lake exception, however, to sometimes. Same old shit, sameold �pe. idea of publishing this thing in the first place your comment about there being only two wassupposed to bebecause it wouldbe /JJrJ. places for a crazy old coot like Ron. I think Love and Light to you aD, he'd do very nicely in an old actors' home Linda Lou Lawnn:e somewhere, far away from any semblance of In Transition power, where he and Nancy could rock their DearLL time away on the front porch and reminisce about all those terribly bad, terribly funny I was justabout ready tosendyou a. Mr. Uvermore, h movies they made in the days. I may dislike letter saying that you had become te Nsw the senile oldfogey. but I pity him more. He's I see my little letterprovoked you to Yorl( Tmes of the zine world. But the quite obviously in the throes of Alzheimer's, print it in your publication (Letters to the December issue hu the old . punch and his wife is a pathetic anorexic, and the best LOOKOUT. #23). l It seems to have offended quality. I would pay $2.00 fora retrospective thing for al concerned would have been for you, I don't knowwhy. Y'see, the buck I sent issue, atleasl them both to go off quietly somewhere and you in Oclober, I knowa buck isn't verymuch maybe come out for occasional profiles on money, but it wu the most recent thing l'Ve JohnGalanos 's "Whatever bought through the mail due to the fact that Entartajnmant Tonight West Orange NJ happened to•.. • section and infrequent my international tape distribution hu sucked appearances on lb@ Lgya Boat. Naturally, I me my of all sparemoney. would have preferred all this to to have It isn't so much the money, u it is De• Lawrence, happened before he ever ran for any sort of money for a "free" zine. I get guillyif I let a · office but don'tlook at me, I wasn't one of the letter lit for a couple of days. I realize that I Forgive me for not replying idiots who voted him SAG president and don'tget as muchmail u you, butdoes it lake personally sooner, but with my own started the whole ball rolling downhiR. a nasly lettarto getyour atllllntion? But, think newsletter now in a bit of a hiatus, I flnaDy Given the alternatives you about il If I have to, 111 swear, cuss, and have more time on my hands to callCh up on sugested, I'm not so sureJ wouldn't mind a offend everyone, if lhars what it lakes to get needed correspondence. terribly bland nobody like Dole being in people off their asses and out of this very While I have only received two power; he seems so, well, harmless. Then commercial, "Pleue wait 4-6 weeks for issues of the LOOKOUT so far (#s 21 and again, they all change when they hear the de6very" attitude. 23), I must confess to being somewhat words "Commander in Chief,• don't lhey? Just to get my point across, I don't mystified by your letter writers' complaints. . Even Ford, once deemed one of the most know what your circulation ls/was, but I sold Specifically, I refer tothe letterfrom DanTodd harmless of them all, seemed to magically 22 out of 75 mags and lost over $100 (the in #23, to which I thought you responded forget all his vast knowledge of the rest given/traded). On the tape front, l'Ve quite weU. It astounds me how some people Constitutiononce he stepped into the oval. sold 35 total (30 in the catalog). I give you can completely miss the point of whatever I think Israel, rather lhan being permission to feel sorry for me and buy lots magazine 110 which they happen to be writing neo-nazi, is bett,r likened to a paranoid and lots of stuff. lrs not thatmy stuff is bad, a letter; their whining serves only to make schizophrenic. You'd be pa-anoid too if your but the people are lame (always the case, them, not lhe magazine, look foolish. I can't enemies really following you aD the time right?). To paraphrase thepunk types in t_he m understand why some people, in our (orsurroundng you, as is thecase with Israel town of Portsmouth: 'We won't buy your zine supposedly technologically advanced age, geographically)... but hey, you can't go because so and so contributed and she stiU don't realize that there are reasons why around claiming you didn'tstart il joined the army." Niceand simple. type looks the way it does, or is reduced, or I enjoyed your"Bom Again Pagan" In closing, seeing as hawyou seem on a computer or such, and why essay. According to the ultra-right-wing to like quotes: (furthermora) theymake thatissue the�st of Sunday magazine Parade, "Born Again me, shit on Fuck me, their entire letter, instead of concentrating on Pagan• was lhe "worst T-shirt of 1986." It , care, see I justdon't you the topics discussed with the magazine must have really scared the shit out of 'em. G.G.ALLIN itself?! Theworld is, unfortunately, chock full (Of course their "best" one was some syrupy of these assholes looking for trees in forests one about childhood... I can't remember it Mike they can't see, and I personally think you do andjust as well.) Thanks for reminding us all BAOLUCKzine I Urine yourself a greater service in 11'8ating them like what Christmas is m11Jx all about And while I Sample Tapes the ridiculous ninnies they are than in sympathize, I'd just as soon not celebrate the 7 Bride Hill Drive attemptingserious discoutse with them. sun's return until said sun convinces me it's Hampton NH 03842 Speaking, then, of the actual really here, like in April or so. You California � of #23: Bravo for your lead article! people don't know how nice you have it; here ("The Empire Strikes Out") A very concise in New York we like to make a creative habit Dear Lawrence, and (thankfully) biased overview of all the out of hibernation. madness surrounding us and pinning us Thank you for your continual Thank you for your publication. I down. I'm grateful I can readarticles like this updates on CAMP, by the way. I do plan to feel that your publication was kinda like the one instead of having to content myself with live out there within the next few years, and sortof stuffmy friendsand I did backwhen we the mainstream press' claim of "objectivity" any information I can glean beforehand about were in college. Good stuff, but maybe you1I and refusal to call a spade a spade for fear of the repression to watch out for is of major corporate reprisal. The main�tream press help. EBP-DA | www.eastbaypunkda.com January 1987 LOOKOUT! Pages

The music reviews didn't do much for "reallife" after school. When you'rea kid, when the same fundamentalists who shnek for me, as I don't follow that area too closely. I most of what you see (even on TV) stresses about the breakup of traditional values buy admit to being hopelessly Top 40. Ifs not cooperation; once you start school, into the nonsenseas much as their kiddies? I something of which I'm proud, it just particularly junior high and high school, was, I'm happy ID say, fortunate enough to happenedthat way, but I'm stuckwith it competition becomes far more important, pick up "traditional values" like cooperation "The Good Witch" was quite until it is the only mindset taught as valid. and courtesy, and can say without too much disturbing in its truth. I work in the East There is an insane fear in this country that if doubt thatmy conscienceis reasonably free Village, and to a lesser extent the same old we aren't the best at something, it means we alterthis article. thing is going on nowadays. Those of us shouldn't do it at all (or that we should pour Thanks for the zine reviews; I'm who know better and can't (or don't want to) the cure-all, more money, into it until we IDl looking forward to sending away for one or afford Manhattan rents live in places like the best); this is an alien concept to much of two. Brooklyn, which is coolerthan sounds. it I'm a thepopulation of communist bloccountries, I I'm not so sure "The Best of the Flatbush gal myself. should think. When one reportafter another LOOKOUr on is such agoodidea. Aren'tmost It certainly does seem as if eastern TV news emphasizes how little STUPH of your articles dated - that is, don't they . bloc countries are easier on "subverilve• people can buy in Russia, it completely apply 110 aspecific politicaDy orientedactivity? musicians and poets (and even journalists!) dismisaes the notion that perhaps Russians' Also, I think it's bad luck, forlack of a better than our wonderful Land of the Free. I hear lives don't rewlve aroundSTUPH in the first 18rm, to put out a "bestor a smaH presszine there are currently plans tohave more place. Hmm - maybe I should amend what I lhars stillpublishing. It takes too much time, prominent American and British rock stars said above about the indoctrination of money, and energy away from your present tour the USSR. Although they may all be children. The cartoons themselves may efforts. Forwhat my 2C are... worth emphasize coooperation, but the Again, thanks for agreeing to trade "name"stars, not allof themare bland, so we k may see some interesting fireworks. merchandising behind those cartoons, which with me, and I'm looing forward to future gets through to kids much easier than any I can appreciate Joe Britz' o issues with equal enthusiasm! sentiments, but of G.Q.Y£U. many people fake-sunding "moral,• moreis the competitive, "wanna be like the Folks on the Hill.• driving needIDacquire useless !Dys / ElayneWechsler Competition is a major reason why possessions than theother kida. The Yuppie INSIDE JOKE zine adolescents get fucked up, and a major Puppies are on the rise. What's the fuss NewYork method of brainwashing them in preparation about teaching our children proper �'r

adults responsible for running iL The Ledger reprinted the article and the excrement hit the air conditioner. • The ensuing outrage, expressed in /' series of marginally literate letters to the editor, centered not Any dollbu abo"' who OW111 tllld opuau, the around the specific charges rsiled by the kid, but rather on the fact that a mere child (a "child" who in a matter of a year Mendocillo ColUll'J Boord of Sll/lflT'lilor1 1llollld .lu.JH been two allayed by a recelll d.cilio11 011 ,coi.re complaillll agam,t tu or will be considered prime cannon fodder for whatever Lolli.riaM-Pacif"u:. miU i11 Fon Bragg. Neigltbor, of tu plant crackpot war the Reaganauts will be promoting then) would have bull tryillg for IOIM time to get tM COIUll'J to place IOIM dare to criticize or question the authority of his elders. re1trictio111 011 tu racut protbu:ed there, b"' tu ,upu told Although this will no doubt sttike some u of a dangerously tum 11othi11g collld be done lllllil ,coi,e level, collld be radical concept. education wu once thought u a means of mea,11red by tu appropriate u.puu. helping young people learn to 111.iu. for themselves, not u a A,ul whc,c might tu colUll'J get aroiuuJ to sort of boot camp where they are prepared for a lifetime of that? Well, ,cot for the ,wa year or two, at lea.st; it 1eem1 a, unquestioningly following orders. Young Ugren should be if th.re·, just not any mo-, to pay for tu allegedly pointed to proudly u evidence that some education actually nece11aty 1tudic1 (it'1 not DIOWII if turyOM 1Kggc1tcd tltal tu still � place hereabouts. But such wu not the case. Leading the supu simply drive to tu edge of tu Fon Bragg mill a,ul try of listc11i11g for tum,elvu). BIil if tu complailUllll1 want to charge the know-nothings was Ledg er columnist and all­ come back before the Boord of Gcckl i11 1988 or 1989 (!?!), around busybody Thelma Lute. As self-appointed they c1J11 mau a rcq,um tltal tu colUll'J ftuuJ. noile abaletMIII spokesperson for the "Leggen community," she demanded a studies which might i,c tw11 lead to 1omc action, 1ay aroiuuJ public apology from Ugren, who wisely ignored the old biddy. tu year 20()() (thi1 la,t fig11rc my ow,c e1timatc bt11cd 011 pa,t In her fust Ledger column of the new year, Lute revealed her colUlly performance). own warped value system when she offered her heartfelt By that time, of co11r1c, Lord1iaM-Pacifu: congratulations to two graduating Leggett High School seniors will have long 1i11ce fi11i1ud clear-cKtti11g Mendocino Co1111ty, who have signed on with Uncle Sam's mercenary forces. One and tu mill will be citur goth.ring dust or have been of these lovely lads declaring themselves ready to kill for a converted illlo a towi1t tlwM parlr.. living is also named Lute, presumably a son or grandson, though there's a lot of inbreeding in these small towns, which goes a long way toward explaining the intelligence level Publishing a weekly new5"aper in a topn the thereof. Anyway, Thelma, I guess it's fme to send your kids size of Laytonville must not be the easiest Job in the world, off to other countries to blast innocent people into only items smithereens and maybe· come home u flag-draped hamburger, especially when you confme yourself ofto printing of local inrerest that won't upset any the local powers that bat God forbid they should have an independent thought in be. As a result. the Ledger consists of mostly ads and filler, their heads. Multiply that kind of thinking by the thousands with some occasionally interesting columns (to be fair about and millions and it's little wonder this country is in such this, the Ledger does pretty much avoid the overt ideological desperate trouble. bias that makes many larger newspapers so patently offensive). So it shouldn't be surprising that one of the Tlic Toxic Substance, Committee of th.­ biggest brouhahas to bit the Ledger's pages in recent months North Coa,t Green, (o,cc of tu few still-active chapter, of concerned the discovery that a Mendocino County youth bad, that once-promili11g move1MIII) ha, received a $6000 gr011t to despite the concerted efforts of our encrusted educational mau a study of 11.rbicidc use i11 colUll'J forelts. establishment. somehow learned to formulate and express an A.r IJIIY marginally co111cious re,ident of opinion of bis own. Kris U gren, a student representative to Mendocino ColUlly 1h0Kld /cnaw, dluing much of tu la,t few the Fort Bragg School Board, wrote an article ridiculing the decade, corporate loggers have freely waged chemical warfare Leggett school system and some of the less than competent 011 our forest land, and the people who inhabit tum. On one hand, it may seem str1J11ge that 1J11Y study i, necessary to

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ixtermine thal pouring vast amollllls of poison on the land and water from which we t/4rive our sustenance is a bad iua, f:S�� fllU��t(tl/Jf:St(t@ bill if compiling data 011 precisely what has been done to our co&111trysiix changes even a few minds in the right places, it should be worth it. To thal end, if yo11. have any information al {f]J ll jij iJJ all abollt when and where herbiciixs have been used in Mendocino Collllly, or on any res11.lts thereof. contact either S11.e Roberts, Box 129, Comptche CA 9S427, or Kristy Sarconi, Some readers may be wondering why I've Box 284, Comptche CA 9S427. been neglecting Mayor Feinstein and her fleet of tin-can limousines, otherwise known as the San Francisco Municipal Railway. The recent Wall Street scandal concerning Well, I haven't forgotten about one of my the slimy white-collar thug Ivan Boesky probably tends to favorite targets of derision and outrage, but after spending strike most disinterested observers as little more than an considerable time u one of its victims, er, passengers, I have elaborate Monopoly game played with real money by a bunch a more specific complainL Namely, that the Muni is run of moral midgets suffering from a severe case of arrested primarily for the benefit of commuters and the downtown corporations that employ them. If you intellectual· developmenL want to go somewhere But Boesky, who received the drastic and Monday through Friday during business hours, you can nearly inhumane punishment of having to give back fully half probably get there without too much inconvenience, and if of bis ill-gotten gains (leaving him with only $100 million you travel in between the peak commmute hours, you might profit for all his trouble), left the North Coast a legacy which even get a seaL will outlast him and all bis heirs: a giant scar ripped out of But nights and weekends? Forget it? If you the heart of the world's last major stand of virgin redwood can't afford to drive a car to your leisure-time activities, the foresL mayor evidently believes you should be staying at home One of Boesky's last acts before being nailed saving your money to buy one. Even in the middle of Saturday by the feds was to spearhead the takeover of the Pacific afternoon, when people are out and about all over the City and Lumber Company, a family-run business that wu one of the automobile traffic is unbearable, buses run at ridiculously very few logging combines to practice sustained yield forest long intervals and arrive packed to the gills. And at night, management (the very simple and self-evident concept of not the Muni pulls almost a complete vanishing acL cutting down trees faster than new ones can grow) by It stands to reason that a public something called the Maxxam Group, a collection of scammers transportation system can serve an especially valuable and parasites whose mow operandi is to get hold of a function by providing an alternative means of travel for company and run it into the ground u quickly u possible so people out drinking and carousing, but most drunks still as to be able to liquidate its assets. capable of extricating their car keys from their pockets will The principal uset of the Pacific Lumber choose to drive rather than wait a half hour or more on a Company is, of course. lumber, in the form of roughly 40,000 windswept San Francisco street corner. acres of virgin redwood. The sawmills are already being Of course, if you can't or won't drive, and cranked op for a spring start; and timber harvest plans have bus service is just too slow, or, as in many parts of the city, been filed for a doubling of the old rate of logging. nonexistent at night, you can always do what Mayor Feinstein Fortunately a resistance is already does. Take your limousine. emerging, and it may be that the Maxxam speculators, most of whom have never even seen the 'North Coast, have gotten O11.tgoing City Administrative Officer Roger themselves more than they bargained for. Legal challenges BOtU, who has served a., Feinstein's faithful axeman dwing are already being readied, and perhaps even more effective her years of lr.,ying WMte to mw;h of what wa.r good and could be the extra-legal efforts of groups like Earth First! bea"'if"' abolll San Fra.,u:i1co, can now be heard· moaning (see Letters to the LOOKOUT in this issue). Let's hope the lotuily to the mas• media and anyone else who will listen that Wall Stteet carpetbaggers lose their uses on this one, and the City is s,iffering from a "upressed busiftUS climate." that Mother Earth wins one for a change. What the overpaid ( almo1t I 00 grand a year) Chamber of Commerce flack i.r concerned about is the ...and another letter to the Anderson fact that some of the corporations who have befouled Valley downtown with their largely pointless highrisu and the Advertiser that should have attendant gridlock. and pollution are now userting the City, been sent to the LOOKOUT, too... from a moving their headquarters to suburban wastelanth Wee writer who could clearly teach Lawrence Concord and Walnll.t Creek. Anyone who truly loves San Francisco will Livermore a thing or three about the of co11.rse be applauding the upart11.re of these marall.ding creative use of invective... interlopers and encouraging teh remaining ones to follow in their footst,ps. And we can fervently hope that the horus of b,ui11es1-sll.ited geeks who have become a plagu eclipsed President Reagan: only by AIDS and, possibly, real estate speculators, will also pull up stakes and talu: up resiunce somewhere on the far Have you noshame? Can it bethat yqu ares� too dull to ur,derstandthe implicationsof teh situation youhave put siu of the East Bay hills where they can more conveniently yourselfin? s11.Clde at the corporau teal. San Francisco by right should belong to the After so many dishonest immoral episodes and arti1ts, weirdo1, and misfits who made this city what it is; it perpetrated on a public that trusted youJ you have finally been exposedas a disgracefulincompetent anaa mendacious buffoon. is 011.trageoll.S that sw;h worthies should be displaced by Surely even you must realize, behind your pathetic myopic all.Slander• who1e esthetics are proscribed by the screen of fatuous braggadocio and geriatric machismo,that it is concrete and glass boxes in which they labor and whose ludicrous to babble of standing tall when a man has obviously ethics are ufined by the size of the paycheck. urived gone down on his knees. Resign, you sham, you affliction, youcancer on all that is thereby. Everytime I have to make a mad dash to avoid being decent, humane, and honorable in America. Resign before the mowed down by a speeding BMW piloted by some whole truth is known, in spite of you and your stonewalling cadre monomaniacal y11.ppie 011 his way to close some crucial "ual,H of shallow blundering thugs, and v.ou arerevealed to all the world every time I have my life impeixd by greedy landlords, self­ as the soulless simpleton and debased and evil fraud you have appoillted arbiters of commercial fashion, or find myself always been. having to avoid whole sections of town on . weelu:nds to lu:ep Paul F. Edwards from being overrun by frenzied escapees from a Michelob Pacific Palisades CA Light commercial, I can only say, thanks a lot, Mayor .•_.reprinted from the Feinstein, for inviting these creeps to come live in our town, Anderson ValleyAdvertiser and, more importantly, "Here's your hal, what's your hurry?"

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(Ed. Note: Tho11.gl& it wa.r11't originally pl01111ed tl&i1 way, tlw mo1111&'1 1101talgia piece 1111'111 out to The comer of Oakland where my friends be a co11ti11uation of la,t mo111/t'1. For tho1e of of lived had been chosen for its low rent and relative you who didll't 1cc i11111.e #23, it wa.r called accessibility to the City; its cultural attributes were Sharyn. The Good Witch Of The Lower East Side, virtually nil, and the next day headed up Telegraph Avenue and told of my adV011wc1 i11 tile New Yorlt � Ber�eley, the Athens and Mecca of a generation. Before we llippieJj,u,kic 1c•n• of 1968. A.r we rejoill ow talc, h�t Dwight Way I could smell the patchouli oil; soon the l'm leavi11g New Yorlt bclwid and lleadillg out to t/te sidewalks were jammed with more hippies than I'd known promi.red land of California.) existed. In most parts of the country at that time, longhain meeting on the street would typically greet one another as After the sooty canyons of New York, the long-lost members of a common tribe, but here no one took sun seemed incredibly hot and blinding as we crawled across any notice of us at all. I was painfully self-conscious about the country. The cornfields of Iowa and Nebraska were every the fact that my hair wasn't nearly as long as most of the bit as endless and boring as people had promised me they'd people around me. What if they suspected me of being a nark, be. I was looking forward to a dramatic entry into .the Roc:Jcy or worse, a "weekend" hippie? Moantains, the sort you saw in wagon train movies, but on the route we were travelling, the road climbed almost So far I felt like a tourist, but that night I imperceptibly; as we entered Wyoming we were already more made my debut in Berkeley society. It started when my than a mile high and I still hadn't seen a moantain worthy of friend took me to a large west Berkeley house that was the name. headquarters to a real live rock band. It was also, it turned out, the home of a major LSD lab, and when the chemist stuck his head in the door asking for volunteers to test his latest I was impressed. tho11gh, as we got to the 011tskirts of Cheyenne where a billboard of a cowboy on a batch, no one had to twist my arm. bucking bronc proclaimed that we were •Where the West Begins.• I'd never been west of Kalamazoo before. and like I had taken plenty of acid before, but most Americans, I had the mythos of the wild frontier deeply apparently the rest of the country was only getting a v ery watered-dow version of the LSD Californians were taking, imbedded in my consciousness. Here I was, in the footsteps _ J? of millions before me, following the sun to its fmal resting because withm five minutes I began ro see the notes to the place. music we were listening to (the Beatles' SgL Pepper's, natch) take shape and come marching in stately formation out of the N anyone who's ever navigated Interstate stereo. Moments (give or take a few centuries) later, a 80 knows, of course. the reality of the wide open spaces of battalion of Disney characters started slipping and sliding Wyoming and the stares that follow is a lot less romantic than among the treble clefs; I watched with some trepidation as the image they evoke: mile after mile of hot, dusty wasteland Mic.key Moue and Goofy did a grinning tandem swan dive off bro.ken only by some scrubby, nondescript hills. It wasn't a resonating middle B. until we pulled out of Reno that the west began to live up to its advance billing. The Sima Nevada, now there are some I experienced a sinking feeling as I realized mountains. And saddenly the hills were taming green, thick that this was how things were likely to be going for the next with ines and firs, and streams and rivers came tumbling 12 hours or so (it turned out to be closer to 24). But there f out o the roe.ks. By the time we rounded the bend and was no fighting it now, so I settled down to watch the show. spotted the "Welcome to California" sign, I knew this was, for me, at least, the promised land. The essence of the evening's early entertainment was that each second was divided into 128 From the top of the Siena it almost seemed million individual fragments (yes, I was able to count them) as though we co11ld see the whole center of the state laid out and in each one of those I would enter an entirely different ' before us, yellow in the midsummer sun. I was reminded of reality. And I mean differenL One instant I'd be seated the scooped out interior of a pt banana. We descended into crosslegged in a tent in the Arabian desert, palm trees the blast furnace heat of the central valley, rolling quickly swaying at a nearby oasis, and the snorting and pawing of across the last few hours of flat monotony while I earnestly hot-breathed camels just outside my door. Suddenly my studied some tourist guidebook to the climate, culture, and friends and I were transformed into Eskimos disembowelling geography of the San Francisco Bay Area. It was only then a freshly killed walrus on the floor of our igloo. No: we were that I lesrned that Oakland, our ultimate . destination, was cowboys lo11nging around the bunkhouse after a cross-country right next door to San Francisco; I'd had a vague impression cattle drive. B11t loo.king up I realized there was no ceiling that it was situated somewhere halfway to Los Angeles. I also but the endless star-splattered sky, and our campfire (where found out that northern California was far removed from the did that come from?) became the flaring exhaust of the space image of palm trees and surfboards, something that was ship carrying us on an unprecedented mission to the outer brought home to me as we crossed the coastal mountains and reaches of the universe, one from which there would be no slipped under the near.perennial blanket of summer fog. return.

Night was falling and the cloud layer glowed And so it went for what must have been the an eerie orange from the lights of the city. N we left the next few hours. One characteristic: of the human mind seems freeway, the first thing I spotted was the enormous to be that it can get used to just about anything, and I was dachshund statue atop a Doggie Diner; as I gaped in awe, a starting to settle into a sort of equilibrium when someone pink Cadillac slid by. announced that it was time to get up and go somewhere.

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. Get up? What could that mean? Move my body? I had a body? Where did_ these arms and legs come Explosions were pretty common in Berkeley from? You mean I can tell them what to do, make them take that summer; I'd say about once a week I'd hear shock waves me places and get me things? What an ingenious system! reverberating off the hills. Banks, draft boards, police cars: nobody except for the mass media seemed to take much notice Suddenly the door opened and my friends of iL I gradually settled into somewhat of a routine. J'd and I oozed through it into the California night. Wait, they moved in with the rock band, which made seven of us sharing had forgotten something, they'd be right back, and I was a $100 a month basement flaL Fourteeen bucks a month rent alone. wasn't too hard to come up with, and as for food, there were two free meals every day, lunch at the Free Church on Durant, I had never been in such an utterly alien and dinner in Provo Park, sponsored by the balloon people environment. The sky was bluish-purple, pulsing with (they always bad lots of red balloons around; I don't know electricity as if reflecting the light of a million upturned why). television screens. The fronds of the huge palm tree that • dominated the front yard, the strange grasses and weeds that There wu a hypnotic qaality to life in appeared to be quickly overgrowing the crumblin1 sidewalks. California, a kind of dreamlike state that I'd never the odd shaped and colored cactus. all this unfamiliar experienced back in the midwest. The air seemed softer, the vegetation seemed to occur in jagged edges, slicing through light had a soothing, seductive color to it, and the almost the darkness. The neighborhood wu a little shabby, but my unvarying pattern of morning fog and afternoon sun made it exaggerated menial state quickly translated th.at into an difficult to tell one day from another. Looking back later on image of advanced decay. It wu also preclommantly black, so that summer.in fact, it woukl seem u if I could recall only I concluded that I had somehow landed in 21st century one long day and an equally long nighL As time melted away, Africa, some years after the fmal collapse of westem it became harder and harder for me to understand why civilization. anyone would want to live anywhere else.

I heard a soft footstep, and suddenly I wu Actually, it was starting to seem as if surrounded by several dashiki-clad Zulu warriors. With nobody did want to live anywhere else. The Summer of Love. • grinning faces they backed me up against the wall, demanding when young people from across the nation were supposed to something, I wun't sure what, in that suange tongue of come to San Francisco with flowers in their hair to create a theirs.· Just then my friends re-emerged from the house and love and peace utopia. was officially dead and buried, but saw me babbling incoherently. They introduced me to the still the kids kept stteaming in, most of them with even less next door neighbors, who were wearing the black-power attire of an idea of where they were going or what they were going to that wu v«y fashionable at the time, and had come over to do than I had had. My first visit to the fabled Haight- borrow some cigareues. . Ashbury wu fairly depressing. We ran into a former love . child I'd known on the east coast; he had his hair slicked back and wu toting a. brief case packed with amphetamine We set off on our adventure. This walking and a loaded pistol. Typical. said people back in Berkeley; business, I found, wasn't so hard once you got used to iL We the Haight was totally uncool now, all hard drugs and were headed toward Telearaph Ave. It being a Friday night, violence. there would typically be u many u 5000 hippie types and their suburban camp followers han&ing out, taking over the streets and making driving nearly impossible for the carloads But the bad times hadn't really hit Berkeley of gawkers who wonkl often be backed up halfway to Oakland. yet, and on any given day there would be 10 or 15 new faces on the Avenue, complete with backpacks, sleeping bags, cats, · dogs, beads, feathers, and expectant expressions that said Things had setded down considerably in my something like: "Well, here I am: where's my future?" As the brain by now, so I wu surprised when I began seeing colored owner of not only my own blanket, but a comer of a basement lights Ouhing all around me. Actually, it wu mostly one floor on which to unroll it, I was one step ahead of these color, red, and it put me into a hypnotic trance that wu only folks. or one step ahead of the street, as we would say. disrupted when a speeding fire truck missed me by about a fooL But that was about iL Even though I always managed to come· up with fourteen bucks rent on time. my The truck, it turned out, wu going to position at my new home was at best tenuous. The band I was Telegraph, too, and I found out why a moment later as I living with had come to California hoping to follow the likes turned the comer from Haste onto the Avenue and a tear gas of the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane into major­ grenade whizzed by my head. Here came the riot squad and label success, but long-haired, drug-oriented bands were not there went the hippies and I wu right in the middle. I heard exactly in short supply, and they were lucky to get an the sound of squealing tires and car doors opening; a mini­ occasional paying gig. Their leader, an irascible dead ringer squad of helmeted men waving big clubs wu heading right for for Frank Zappa, for some reason absolutely hated me. me. Everytime he would see me around the house he would threateti to throw me out, so I spent a lot of time on the The act of walking had been a minor miracle streets. only a short time before, but running came v«y naturally now. And that was how things went until late in the nighL But I had my allies, too. One was my roomie Stop and gawk at the fighting, burning, and looting, then run (our- "room" was actually just a curtained-off section of for my life when the cops would come peeling around the another room), a 200-plus pound female folksinger with a comer or bursting out of some alleyway. I didn't have much perpetually broken heart, and another, my favorite, was the desire to destroy anything myself, but it wu sure fascinating closest thing to an extraterrestrial life form I'd yet to watch others doing iL A girl about my age put a brick encountered. His name was Flam, and his sole passion in life through the last remaining plate glass window of the Bank of was the study of medieval arcana. Days be would hibernate America, then turned and gave me one of the nicest smiles I in the back room. and then late at night be would wrap his had ever seen. six-foot beanpole frame (topped with an enormous Afro that be bad to physically restrain to get through most doorways) The riots went on for the next two nights, into a bead-to-toe overcoat, and set off with his walking stick and ended up with a bang, so to speak, as someone used a to sit under a street lamp and read until dawn. bomb to level some new construction at Dwight and Telegraph that had failed to live up to his or her aesthetic standards.

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But he raised barely an eyebrow in the Berkeley of those times, when weirdness was at a premium Three of us set out on a cross-country and my biggest social liabilities were having too-short hair hitchhiking marathon that ended up taking eight days, and and shoes that had once been shiny {actually, I guess that included a 16-hour wait at a treeless outpost 30 miles past made me a real weirdo, but not in the right way). I made up Reno where previous sojourners had left such slogans as, for it by wearing a 10-sizes-too-big double-breasted suit "Give up now, you'll never leave here alive,• a botched coat that I'd found in an alley and throwing away my sturdy freiaht-hopping attempt that ended with us being rousted by leather shoes {purloined from the Army ROTC) in favor of my a whole sheriffs posse on horseback, and being met at the day-glo splattered tennis shoes left over from New York that city limits of Vacaville (rough translation: Cowtown) by the exposed more of my feet than they covered. In such waif-like whole city police force, who told that we wouldn't be allowed apparel I would set out to sell copies of the Berkeley Barb to to even walk throuah their town. straights in San Francisco's rmancial district and tourists on Broadway's topless row. One of our party split off in Nebruka, another in Illinois, and I travelled the lut 300 miles by Between that meager income and the myself. M I hit Ann Arbor, fall wu startin& to make. itself munificent 25• a column inch I wu paid for occuional felt in earnest, and the parts of my feet protruding from what articles in the same publication, I wu able to manage a wu left of my day-glo tennis shoes felt awfully cold on the meager material existence. And if the rest of my life had pavemenL I wu naturally a little nervous, being still on the been in better shape. thinas could have been just peachy lam from the police, but no one seemed to take much notice of keen. But I wu still a scared and lonely kid, on the run from me. a dope charge that could send me up the river for more years than I'd yet been alive. Though California wu an almost · magical place to me, more wonderful than I would have been Then suddenly, all around me, all over town, able to dream of during the darker days of my youth, I found car horns started blaring. firecrackers going off, bells my thoughts now straying more and more to the sights and ringing. and people screaming. While being possessed of the faces I had left back in Michiaan, same delusions of self-importance u most 20 year-olds. I · didn't really think all the commotion wu on my account, but I couldn't imaaine what it WU abonL I rmally ulted One bright Sunday morning. I wu bouncing someone, and wu told that the Detroit Tigers had just won the along Blake Street, and found myself thinltin& about an old World Series. "Little Rucals" short where one of the kids wu singin& "I wish I had a watermelon, I wish I had a watermelon,• and before I knew it; I wu singina alona. AA I turned the corner, The Detroit Tigers. My childhood heroes. my eyes popped open wider than little Buckwheat's. because At one time I could bave recited the vital statistics of every there, just like in the movie, wu an old bald-headed �laclt player on the team. I hadn't known they were in the World man sitting utride a pickup truck packed to overflowing Series. I hadn't known· the World Series wu going on; in the with... what else? world where I had been living during the put year, it didn't even exisL My re-entry had begun. "Hey, boy; you want a watermelon?" he called to me. Like Buckwheat. I wun't about to look a gift The drup and dreams wore off fut in the watermelon anywhere but right in my mouth, so I lagged a 25 face of lawyers, prosecutors, court rooms, and ultimately, a or 30-pounder on home. Parked out front wu a standard week in jail - not bad in light of the twenty to life I had been facing, but still a sobering experience. Next would be two hippie VW bus with Michiaan plates. My put had caught up t with me in the form of three long-haired denizens of my one­ years of probation, with the condiion that I hold a steady job time home town, come, like me, to seek out nirvana on the and move back in with my parents. Winter found me working west COUL the night shift at a steel mill on a slag-covered island in the Detroit River where no living thin& grew. I tended the coke ovens, and in between making my rounds, with the orange I barely kne.,; them, but they knew nearly _light of molten steel coloring the sky for miles around and all my friends from back east. and had hours of aossip, evil fumes bursting into flame like so many torches in the melodrama. and history in the making to relate. But while darkness, I pored over Dostoyevsky's Crinw and Puni.r/uncnt, they talked I saw not so much the people with whom my life searching for a way to make sense out my ignominious fate. had once been so intertwined. but the little details that so clearly, yet so subtly define a sense of place. It wasn't really the end, of course; sprina and summer came aaain, and with it . the lush midwestem Here in Berkeley it wu well into September, vegetation and the almost visible humidity {another recent yet summer showed no sians of departing. But in the returnee from California said it reminded him of landing on Michigan of my mind's eye I could see the apples and the planet Venus). Some sultry mominas, when the light was pomegranates coming in, passionately red. from the harvest just right. I could squint my eyes and the trees on the fields and the leaves changing colors. and smell the yellow horizon would turn into palm trees, the clouds would haze �f smoke on a closely warm autumn evenina, and feel the transform themselves into mountains, and for a moment, at unmistakable hint of a chill that would soon follow. least. California wu almost real, instead of a distant memory. But I knew where I belonged now. I knew I'd be back. I'd never felt truly at home in Michiaan, but now I wu realizing that. like it or not. it still wa, my home, at least until I took care of the unfinished business there. On paper, or in the logical part of my brain, it made no sense to go back. Already, because I had stayed away u long u I had, Why has every Republican president a good part of the state's case against me had evaporated, and if I waited long enough, the whole affair would likely be since Abraham Lincoln been so crooked that they forgotten. And I had succeeded in establishing m�self in need a brace of Secret Service men to help them screw . . Berkeley, something which a lot of the young h1pp1es washmg their pants on in the morning? up on those shores had failed to do. Still, I had to go; I guess it wu just one of those cases where the feet move futer than the brain. ... Hunter S. Thompson

EBP-DA | www.eastbaypunkda.com January 1987 LOOKOUT! Page 10

rememberihai for all sellouts,the apathetics, andjocks thaton are the A Beginner's Guide To Punk surface,there lots are of greatpeople as well. Canyou say thatfor Rock societyat large? Y°" look atwith us scornful eyu To yov. ou.r livesunwise areso byJoe Britz Yoi, say tMI you've heard everything Butit's obvious yo11,'re not list4ning I havea feelingmany that people still have an Y011, don't unt.lusland exttemelydisr.orted view of punkand rock the people involved with it. Y""can 't realiz,e Onlya few months ago the LOOKOUT printedaletterwhich stared, Ignorancein is 'JO"'eyes " .. .myidea of punkwas sha� by theconventional. press TV. and Punkswere English boys with fmmy hairdos who were put out because YOtmlBRIGADE therewere no jobsto behad, so theyjust slouched at screet comers and sneered c:ameru."into theTV This isunderstandable an outlook given the GUEST OPINION superficialperspective of the boob tube.irwnst Soinlhe of giving someyour of distant observers a montvision realistic of whatall the BY mEREV.ARmuR. SNIVELY monotonousmusic. bizmefashion. andnonamfonnist lifestyles are about.here's a littlefirsthand infonnation. (ED. NOTE: The LOOKOUT luu often bun accused of harboring a thinly veiled bias again.st organized Firstoff. as with most topics, believe almost religion. In order to dispel that misconception, we nothing of whatyou se, hear, or read in the mainsnummedia. Thereis have agreed this month to give space to the linlefactual conlml, only and the wont aspec ts of punk an, outlined.I thinkit wasthe New Yorker which "delved" into New lhe York City disting11,ised Christian scholar, Rev. Snively, to punk sceneago afewmonths and endedpofiling up themost ridiculous discuss an iss11,e he feels is of great significance al this time of year.) combinationof bozosr ou couldpossibly meet. Thegroup. as with manypeople labelled' rockers", punk was only amic:rocosm of thereal, ugly world,and nothinghad to dowith people in the scenethatIactually know.

e Santa -- Satan Thesestereotypes are perpetuated evn further on television. In a fanzineP"11kJw auided editor JoJm Liben6describes no lessthan 34 programswhich andseveralc:ommacia1s OXl>loit and Coincidence or Conspiracy? ridiculepunk. One ofepisode "CPOSharkey" aired in197g is One of the happiest s1ghts of the describedthusly: "Navy geekslooking for a fun time goclub toapunk Christmas season has traditionallv been that of wide-eyed little andget mocked by commandingthe punks.Their officer is upset by children flocking tositon merry old SantaClaus's knee ana tell the this and goesclub tothe to tell off.the punks He succeeds in kindly red -cladgent their dreams of holiday treasure. Millions of convincing!hem thatNavy the is cool and even gets a coupleof punks to parents have innocently allowed their babies to become enlist.H yeah. happens allthetime! ent�ralled l:!Y,th� ancient legendof the jolly man who gives without askinganytli1ng 1n retum. Harmless fun? Perhacs not Christian scholars To discoverthe underlying auth of thematter, let's now suggest that the personof Santa Claus may be a crueland firstdiscuss music. the Ifyou listen beyond the "boring. repetitive beat" fiendish cfisguiseperpetrated by the Fatherof Lies, Satan Himself. (I thinkit' s thrilling,but that's neither here there) nor you'll hear many Let's look at the evidence. What lies at the songswith thoughtful, compassionate, and inspiringwords (though a heart of the Santa Claus myth? Why, the idea of getting lyricsheet would be useful at thispoint, and the ofmajority punk something for nothing, of course. Oh, sure, as song ana story would have it, the littletykes are being rewarded for fiavingbeen recordsone). include Checkout some recordsPROLBT bythe ARIAT, aood all year, but cananyone pointto an instance where any child CHUMBAWAMBA, MDC, CRASS, orseveral thousand others, and fias actually received a lump of coal in his or her stocking? you'llsee what I mean. And what is the effectof this orgy ofgift-giving? Does it help make our children aware of the true meaning of Next youmight like to read somehomemade Christmas, whichis the birthof our Lord and SaviourJesus Chnst? On the contrary, children, who are bynature graedv and uncaring cheapie(AKA magazines fanzines). Againthere must be thousandsof little monsters, think only of the booty theY, stand to gain. The thesethroughout theworld (punkis most definitely a worldwide proper P.lace for a child on Christmas Day is not beneath some phenomenon) andjust about ,:veryone is done ofu alabor love, notfor taworilybedecked fir tree (itselfan ancient pagansymbol) playing_ profiL If you'reinterested in thisyou area, mightsend St.SO to with. trains and dollies, but in a church pew singing hymns ana MaximumRocknroll, POBox 288, Berkeley CA 94701, andyou11 get praying. oneof themore intelligent ones which also listsochers addressesfor •By their fruits _ye shall know them: said Our (anothersuggestion: FactslralFiwt, available for $2 fromMilte Lord, and the only d1scemible fruit of a belief in Santa Claus is a Gunderloy, 6 ArizonaAve., RensselaerNY 12144,has listings and self-centered lust for material possessions. And how could anyone fail to notice that this Santa invariably dresses in vivid..1 reviews of justabout every zine published in thiscountxy .. .Ed.). satanicre d the colorof hellfire itself? Who could hear the souna of his laugh\ the diabolical "Ho ho ho,• without recognizing the Anotherpossiole sourceto seekout is alive show, wicked chort,e of the Prince of Darkness delighting in fits scheme but thiscould very well leave a badimpression because macho the for inveiglingyouthful soulsinto lives of sin ana depredation. goonstend make to theirpresence known above and before anybody All good Christian men and women must take up arms against the dangerous illusion of Santa Claus. Yes, your else. No, the firsttwo sourcesare the best,you're andincase too busy, little darlings may whine and complain that Bobby and Susie next rn give you a quick summaryof whatyou11 leam. You11 discoverthat door are visited by the gift-giving gnome from the North Pole, but many of those "violent,i gnorantassholes"· an, realityin thinking, all Y9u need do is ask tliemlldW tfiey would like to ioin Bobby and caring. activepeople who devote lots of their changingtime to tho Susie in HELLI For all eternity! A lot of good their shiny rad fire fucked-overworld we live in. Whetherit's throughpolitical activi ty, engines will do them then I boycotts,organizing communitycenters, working at souplatchens or Sometimes it's hard to be a good parent, especially when it requires doing things that our less enlightened whatever, thereis anetwork of folksout theredoing positive things brethren might even consider to be cruel. But we have only to whilefew peoi,le outsidethe circle know anything aboutiL Next time, take for our example that of the Lord our God, Who was willing to incinerate whole cities to demonstrate His boundless love for humanity. Should we be prepared to do any less for the sake of our precious children?

EBP-DA | www.eastbaypunkda.com AY! - 01 LET'S GO!! TWO LOUE LETTERS TO THE RAMONES I wasdriving north on Highway 101 asthe last remnants of summerwere fading away. The vineyardsran wild with by Robert Pfeiffer oranges,reds. andpmples; the blue of the sky wasshowing thatdeeper opalescenceit acquiresas the sun southheads for the winter; on the hills Why does anybody older than 17 care aboutrock thefirst hints of green werebeginning to show beneath thelifeless anymore? brown straw leftby anotheryear's pasing. rm 24. I want10 be a rock star, e11911 though I hate Even tosomeone whohad witnessed such scenes u rockstars. Wanting to be one makesme feel noble and blessed-when I it doesn't makeme feel silly and deluded. many timesas had. the beautywasstaggering. But thoughit passed What Iwant l'8ltlly is TheCore. throughmy eyes, it somehow failedto penetrate to my soul I knew it, I The Contis elusive, inscrutable, and essential. The but couldn'tfeel it. Coreis a drop of Jerry LeeLawis' sweat, flying acrossfour rows of . Fora long time. toolong,it had thisbeen way, u if ecstatic hiUbiles and splashing ontoa 15-year-old kid's eyelid. I weresleepwalking through theworld. Once Ilaughed had and cried TheCont is James Brown, scnaaming up to heawn, freely,even topoint the of embarrassingwith thosearoundme my !hen dropping, a hurled an::hangel, 01110 the floorboards. suddenof fits passion. But thenlove a gone bad, a retreat ilUothe The Core is Johnny Rotllen, spitting bile and fury delusionof of totalself-sufficiency, the disillusionments anddiscarded and vengeance, andthan laughing at 1he suckers gawking up at him dreams thatyoung tum men old:ilUo allcombined to leave me only half through the footlights. Butalas, I'm an amaaeur. College bands, party alive. bands, anda couple of nights in empty New York clubs constitute the On the surfacechanged. littlehad A few new brea:fth of my experience. wrinkles, afew gray otherwisehairs. I appeared to be thesamepenonI Wlill, l'Veglimpsed The Core. I am willing a andthose who knew me hadgotten used over to theyears. InsideI wu cledicalltmy life IDguitars, grunge, andscraps of glory for chancea not numb,conscious of onlya dull,aching emptiness. "Get out andhave just ID seeit again, but IDliw tha'e. have fun," friends would say, "don'tlet your life pus you by." To most people, it just doesn't make any sense. Fun? Whatwas fun? I wentto the oldfamiliar It didn't usedID make sense a me eilher. places, butthey weren'tat allfamiliar anymore. At anotherlow point in Born in 1he 60a, I am an unfortunal8member of the my life, it had musicbeen that reawakmed had me. nowbut music SludgeGeneration. We missed out on both theinitial shock of rock'n'rollin 1he SOs-Elvis and d that - and 1he19be11ious 601- seemedjust another exercise, intellectuallysatisfying, but lacking the Hendrix, Dylanal. et Whatwe got was 1he sludge: The Ooobie tnmsfonnativemagic it had once held. Brothers. Queen. Abba. Kansas. Sludge. Untilday, that drivingdown highway,the withthe Aged, self-indulgent, and forthe most part stereoblasdng a tapeof practicallyevery Ramones song there ever wu. derivative, 1hese groupshad nothing thatwould push a musically Depressedor not, there'sno way I canbe unhappy whenthe Ramones inclined kid lika· into me a pawn shopwith 20 bucks anda dream. areplaying, andI wasboWICing aroundin myseat and singing along. AroundChristmas of 1976, fourgl'8Uy kidsfrv Then, whenit came to thelastsong on the tape, somethingstarted Queens, N.Y. changed 8'/81y1hing. happeninginside me. The Ramones went at thatclimb limeablatantly It wu "Bonzo Goes To :Bitburg," whichis not, as band, unabashedly cretinous intheiroutlook. They wentoppressively loud. They play9dat unheardof speeds, in tiny nightclubs. the wouldname suggest,a goofytakeoff on PresidentRonbo's tea party Hovering � them was alealher-cladguardan for deadbut nazis, a trulyhaunting, impassioned c:ry thattomeechoes angel era.tram anodw Theangel's name was Fun. Fun was the feelings of everysoul witha shred of sensitivity who wondersjust something the Sludge Generation didn't get much of, up lhent in 1he whatthe h;llgoing is on in this madwe world inhabit. 145th row of Madison Square Garden. I couldfeel my heartexpanding and contracting. I Rockgets definedas music thatcan be playedwith couldfeel that bouomless pit opening somewhere up beneath my only lhraechords. Thisis unln.le. Onewill suffice. From a reformative stomach, that samefeeling rd gottenas achild the first timerd ever point of view, thought, the Ramones' three-chord lheorywas the six­ gottena clue asto whattrue lonelinesswas all � andcould I feel my siring equivalent of Martin Luther's97 theses. eyesbuming andstinging in a wayfd almostforgotten. Thefirst thing thathooks you is 1he sonicsurge, the joyful noiseof it al. To standin a smallroom with1hree twoor olher Then, u theRamonespowered ilUo thesong's people andcreate thismagisf8rial cln for1he first limeis tomove an inch eloquently simpleguitar break (as if theRamones had any otherkind of ortwo monttoward God. guitarbreak). the dambroke, andIwassobbing, asmuch from joy as And !hen there .. electricguitars. sonow, as muchfrom being aliveand a ofpart thisamazing world and A lot of peopleown a guitar at some pointin their frombeing isolatedand detached from it all. Eachpower chord. and Uves. Acoustic, nylon stringed, and probably a lotof mellowstrumming - there wereonly a handfulof them, seemed tolastfor eternities andto - songs about lemon lr88S, freight trains. unfolduniverses of meaningsand understandings, and allcould I do Electricguitars are about IJains, too. Trainwrecks. I was to c:ry and, inlaugh betweenthetears, like a madman. can honestly state I haw lived through no morepivotal, life.changing moment than theone in which I firstplugged in an electric guitar. And a madmanexactly is whatany passing driven Whetherthis says more about my sad Ufeor these wouldhave thought me tobe. So did I cate? Did evenI think about it? sad times, I don'tknow. It is an intenselyprivate moment, a moment of Not likely; Iwas toobusy being alive, in a way I hadn'tbeen for way c,ytallizalion -the self dissolves, theego disappears, 1heworld lilts. toolong. The next 1hing thathappened - right after I hit my So somepeople say the Ramones atedumb. that firstelectric chord- was feedback. Feedback- not that ear-bloodying theirpolitics (if theyhave any) stink. thattheir three-chmd antics might shriekyou he•when the mike pointsthe wrongway - but that plaintive, have beencute a novelty tenyears ago, buthave long sincegotten pretty vicious sweep of sound that began Steppenwolfs "Magic Carpet Ride,· boring. But I wouldn't be one of thosepeople, becausefor me the lhat propelledJimi Hendrix, back in those glory days I was bom too late for, is whathappens when a given acousticvibration is amplified a a Ramones get rightto theof heart whatmusic •· not justrock roll,and point where it causesthe original source to vibrate in sympathy. Amen. but allmusic - is about: life in all its glory andmagic andinfinite It wasni until 1982 and playing rock'n'roH guitar in possibilities . basements andgarages, playing anywhere, any lime for anylife forms Beethovenand Mozart and restthe of those guys that cared 10 listen, that The Core sunk in. It was addictive, regenerative hadthe same idea,but it took them wholeorchestras and page afterpage . and righteous. I cameto see it as within my grasp, set in a lush interior of sheetmusic you'd that practically have to be an algebramajor to landscape, one composed of fans, limousines, unlimitedweallh. decipher. The Ramones manage to sum it allup in threegrungy chords - • now there'strue genius. AY -0! LETS001! �Continued on next page>

EBP-DA | www.eastbaypunkda.com \.._ RAMONES (continued) It hasto dowith sitting in your room, alone atnight, The exterior landscape was one composedof the and feelingchins on your neck, chills thatwere brought on by a perfect, grunt work of rock: the lugging of amps, the endless driving, the simplechange in a perfect, simplesong. . . . dangerous ennui of rehearsing a set until it has been bledof any real Life offers a point when one decides that this noise. emotion orvitality. •this adolescent, adenoidal ritualis goin to be centrala force in his or her And thatbrings us back to The Core. existence. A lot of soul-searching is usuallyinvolved. Am I tooold? Rock'n'roll has little to dowith "professionalism,• Too fat? Too bald? Toofed up? (that odious buzz word of music business hypesters) or slickness, or I'vejust reached thispoint The Core. I'm going to intellectualism, orthis article, for that matter. keepplaying untilmy fingers falloff. It hasto dowith sweat It has to dowith standing in a room full of strangers and somehow believing, if just fora moment, that REPRINTEDFROM WASHINGTONTHE POST thereis no other moreimportant spot on theplanet

all the band members wore dresses, but at dealers tryin& to invoialo them into the least one had a beard, so I assume &ender is bathrooms for a lino of c:oc:aine, all of them not a major consideration here), but I thou&ht seemin&IY oblivious to the evening's they were hilarioua. and maybe even &uilty of "entertainment", the psychotically ugly WORLD OF POOH, CAROLINER practicina real an. junk-noise of Ausualia's BIRTHDAY PARTY. RAINBOW, GLORIOUS DIN, STICK DOG GLORIOUS DIN was the band rd I vowed never to 10 back there, and at MCS, San Francisco, December 14 specifically come to see: unfortullately I had kept that promise until now. I had been to leave to take someone to the bus station thinkin& about checking out the place again Some of you are probably already md WU only able to catch one and a half r for !he last several months, but J. kept waitin& rollin& you eyea at the above list of bancll: IOllp. I was even more bummedwhen I found for a band to play there dWmi&ht be of some "Whal in bell i1 Lawrence doin& at one of out this wu to be their last &i&, u the sin&er interest to me, but weelt after weelt there wu those South of Market artsy-fartsy scenes? is splittin& from the arc,up. GD have been nothin& but limp colleae-radio !aves or post­ We know he thinks they're all a bunch of topther a while and have put out an album or punk an-trend crapola. Finally, th.ough, I pre&enliOUI dileuantes, IO Why ii he &Oin& to two, but this was my fll'st e.xpcrionce with saw m I-Beam flyea: advertising a bmd that wasle more paper lellin& UI the same thing them. They've been accused of (or praised I'd Iona been plannina to see anyway, San all over qainr for) bein& a JOY DIVISION clone, andthey do Francisco's LOOTERS. Great name..even· if it Well, u G- Pyle WU fond of sound a lot like that· arouP, but they have does IOlllld aliUle too much lib LOOKOtrrS, sayina, surprise, surprise. I enjoyed myself (had) a chan&:ter all their Own> rm kickin& and ihe fll'll U.S. baad to tour poll­ quite a bit, aad didn't find the people myself for Dot &ouia& around to seeiq them revolutial Nicarapa: il didn't semi· to add up involved to be my more prelelllioua. ia fact, 1IDlil now. to I-Beam llllflrial. Bat let's checlc it out.- possibly even leu so, lhln tbolll atatypical fflCK DOG, from Iowa Qty, closed Unfortunately, my arrival at the punt &i&- out the evenina with a (for me) UDeYen Haipc SL ni&hllpot WU ill-timed; the Of couse, a few years qo, the performance; some soqs cmie dan1erou1ly openina band hadn't even started playina, 1oin11-on here would have been CODlidered ck>H to the pHudo-art wan.kin&• dW I'd. md so I hadto sit throup what seemed like Ill inlep part of the the then-buqooniq feared the whole evenina would consist of, aa inlerminable (probably no more lhln 20 punk-new wave-undera,ound sc-, but that while others displayed ouutandina minutes iil real time) assault of new wave WU before lhin&I &ot split up into IO lllllly mulfciullhip producina a pl--chin& 80. disco and white-boy funk aimed at the sub-cla11iflcation1 that only a Ph.D. in sod of psychedoliL Equipmea& problems or swinain& sinalea crowd. My flesh crawls even punkolo&Y could be&ia to keep ll'IClt of it alL -.bin& of that nature led to an esly now, just thinkin& back to iL 11len came But now I felt lib m observer fromllllOlber conclusion of their set, but the ni&ht wu ZULA POOL. These auys are way lame; tbey planet, lhou&h I did recopize a few familiar &ettln& !ale myway, md people a,adually look Ind sound lib tbey spent a year or two faces, aad the aliens definitely weren't singled away. •at.chin& MTVand listenin& to AOR radio and unfriendly. A word aboat the MCS &allory: it then tried to duplicale every cliche contained Aclually, I had a dlllinct feelin& of bu a feelin& of boin& a lqer version of the therein on the theory that this would beina in some ballCIIICIDt dive around 1966 Club Foot, and would seem to have the 1oinehow land them a major label contract. with a bunch of colleae studenu and potential for continuina the tradition of pat And well it mi&ht: they didn't sound any bohemians on the verae of tumin& into underaround shows established by that late better or worse than any of the aeneric Top hippies. WORLD OF POOH, the fint band up. mdi-tedv- 40 Slllff I occasionally hear. did nothin& to dispel that imap, soUDdina Then still . more disco, until the like a very early version of tho VELVET ZULA POOL, THE LOOTERS at the I• LOOTERS ftnally took the stqe, looking as UNDERGROUND, lhou&h maybe a little le11 Beam, San Frandaco, December 15 equally well dressed for perilla warfare as disc:ordanL I later learned dW this WU the arc,up's first &i& ever; there's defmilely some Baclt around 1980 the 1-8- WU a for a rock and roll show. The LOOTERS are potential there. Next up wu CAROLINER py disco lhat was havina trouble anractina pnerally cateaorized u a world beat band, RAINBOW, already much loved (and haled) iD enouah customers on week nights, 10 which theoretically mem1 that they draw certain S.F. circles. As much perfonnanco IOlllllbody Sot tho idea of bookina punk UIIJ/or .• their inspirations from a broad selection of art u musical experience, CAROLINER has a now wave bands on Mondays. Tho plce wu the (mostly third) world's music. But by far reputation for aisaultin& its audience both soon jammed nearly every Monday; it didn't the ltronpll influence I could deleet was menially and physically, 10 I stood back a even seem to matter that much who wu Central and South American, and since some ways from the stqe. This proved to be awise playina, I saw somo preuy &ood shows there of my favorite music comes from thoH decision, as the sinaer concluded the set by myself, and some pretty modiocn onos, too, n:aions. 1 was immediately sympathetic. chargina into the crowd, u1in1 his suap-on like the San Francisco debut of Enaland's It's hard not to dance to the dildo to spray unwiuina bystlllden with a premier haircut band, DURAN DURAN. LOOTERS, which alves them another bi& plus liquid of indeterminate ori&im. But about that time I was in the in my booll:, but unlike most dance bands, the Much of CAROLINER's music was proceas of movina to Mendocino, at least in LOOTERS have a relontlesa and minimal in structun:, if it had my at all, but part because of boina burm out on the uncomprom1un1 political messa3e except for brief intervals wasn't unpleasant. clothes-makeup-and-druas consciousness permeating both the lyrics and the between­ Especially strikina we�e their handpainted that seemed tobetakina over the scene. The songs commenu. Tho most significant part of lhat message to mo was the idea of unity costumes and tiaras glowina eerily under last time I went to the I-Beam, somewhere black li&hts. I could see why · some people around 1983, was an excruciatin& nightmare, amona the various peoples of the Americas. would hate these guys (I use the term loosely; As one who fmds himself on the verge of with new wave secretaries babblin& tales of bitter tears e"11ery time I think of what my office intrigue and nickel-and-dime dope country's despicable excuse for a government is doing to the rest of this hemisphere, such a

EBP-DA | www.eastbaypunkda.com message i1 irresistible, especially when you FORETHOUGHT, D1J1•lo1 CrMZU Lu GILMAN STREET WAREHOUSE, the Fro11tcr•• (Lit TIie• Co•• Acro11 th can dance to iL The LOOTERS also have some nrst seven shows, Dec. 31 • Jan. 17 breathtaking II c11pttllG harmonies that Bortl1r1), 1" EP, $1 -to PO Box 180312, San Francllco �A ,4188 obviously owe something to the music of lhe rve been writina about this place high Andes, but equally much to the songs since lut summer, it seems, and now it's resonating in the guys' own hearts. The only This local band releases an finally open. And wow, what a feeling! So excellent follow-up to their demo tape with weakneis, and it's a minor one, is, u is ohen unlilcc going to a regular club or conc:ert hall; the case with rhythm-based music, the this 5 sona EP. The · combination of when you can loolt up and think to yourself, perspective, socially concerned lyrics, and a LOOTERS occasionally get into a sustained hey, / put that electric wirina in, I helped groove and just jam on it instead of gelling on wide variety of masical influences gives nail up that wall or paint that door, it's more FORETHOUGHT a tight, unique sound. Also with the story (u in about 951, of all reggae). like havina a second home. But all in alL a great band; I hope to see them comes with a nice sleeve that includes lyrics And a second family, too; u &ood u in both En&lish 111d Spanish, 10 to bell with soon in a more favorable environment (like some of the 11111ic presented at the warehouse the Gilman Slreet Warehouse?) instead of this California's recently approved English-only hu been, even more important ii the feeling initiative! One �e thing: amazinaly, this superannuated disc:o. But no hard feelings; I of friendship and community that fve found imagine the I-Beam pays fairly welL and the record is bein& given away for free, so if you with tho people who pitched in to put the happen to meet Cbri1, Hilary, or Tommy, piclc boys can't win the revolution on an empty place together. Some nighll, in fact, I've Sl0lllat:h now,can they? one up and say, "Thmlcsl" a boar, in fact, barely seen any of the bands, beina too busy that there wa1 a slight dl1aareement amona llllcina with old and new friends. Try and INDIANA SLIM AND THE RED ROTS, at band members over cJmaina one whole dollar tell me that cooperative effort doesn't work by mail). the Cro11road1, La:,tonville, and fll show you at least one little corner of December 20 the werld where, riaht now, it's-workina just "Let Them ComeAcross": fine. Dora't IGbcl -• People (including myself) like to And the music? Well, I WU complain about how Mendocino County i1 a aoina No rovcr-111 i, .,,.,.., to lilt SOIDI of the bands that have played so c of cultural desert. But they foraet lhal, given far, but then I realized that I couldn't do J'lf& 41 lf&Clltb , Jt-,.ity our tiny population, we have a remarkable justice to them in such a small space, and fd .• Joe Britz number of uniquely talented individuals. I be sure to foraet some of them and think of people like singer / sonawriter unnecessarily ruffle some feelings. But Michael Ferreua, who, if be had chosen to MAD PARADE, RlrAI Ir Rl1llt, 1", while Ibero have been a few turkeys, there Toxic Shock actively pursue a musical career instead of have also been some outstandlna devotina the built of hil eneraies to ni•ina a performances. One mildly surprisina thing:· These guys have been around for family, could easily have surpaued the likes the aroups who have aouen the bell of Jaclcson Browne and similar follc-roclters. quite a while, and it shows in Ibo tightness receptions so far have often been the more and polish that aive this reccrd suc:h a crispy Another example is the A,uur,011 V tall-, unu111al ones, the artsy-experimental types Adv.rtiHr's Bruce Anderson, who should llld sheen. The title IOll8 ii a catch enough ditty, that -y people tboupt would be rudely though nothina that special, but "Thi• Is probably will some day win tbe Pulitzer scorned by tho more hardcore crowd. And so Prize, and there are quite a few more artisu, Life" on llle other side i1 a shreddina little far, Ibo warehouse hu been fairly 1ucces1ful slice of pop-thruh, replete with the BYO­ artisans, and ae_.al all-around fine haman in auractina a mixture of people Iha one beinas who - perilously cloae to inerilina � style whoa-oh-ob-ob cborua that I'm suc:h a rarely seesll IU'light punk shows. suclcer for. Also included is a cover of the the catch-all appellation of ,eniu. Next question: if you're not already Well, there'• another one rm about STONES' "Mother's Little Helpers" that a part of this scene, what are you wail.in& for? manaaes to be both cleaner and harder to hang that handle on. Indiana Slim, who· Then an 1how1 every Friday and Satarday came to Mendocino County u an overtly roclcina than tho original. My only qualnis normal psychology pd and lben proceeded nighll, and meetings Saturday nighll at 7 about �I this record would come p.m. Anyone CID become amember for the to re-invent himself into a bep-tallcina 50.­ from the fact that it seems like a lot of � nyle cool cat who is one wizard of tbe lifetime fee of S2, provided he or she qrees for only tine -.,. How about an LP, pys? traditional electric pitar. to refrain rr- violence, vandali1111, and the When Slim tallcl to you, ho uses use of drugs and alcohol on the premises. .. .Lawrence expressions that yoa probably haven't heard And who knows, you might even get to - the in the Jut 30 years, and may never have LOOKOUTS lhere some niahL BOMB, 11 ltca,oH Wi7, . C11Htte, heard if you're less than a certain age. But it Ob yeah. to any of you who might 1334 Jeala, San Frand1co CA t4103 have aone to Ari Radiator Shop IJy millllce, I never sounds pretentious or dated, because This ii quite a bit different from the man clearly speaks riaht from the heart. printed the wrona address last month. It's 9� not 928 Gilman, two bloclcs west ol Sa the Slllff I usually review or lillell to, bat I And that's exactly the way he plays hi1 find myself lilcina it quite a biL It'• guitar. Pablo in Beraley. And if you have a band, - gro up, -an project, poetry, any kind of definitely not hardcore or thrash, and boars Anyone familiar with my musical only a tagential relationship to punk, but tastes will know that I ,have almost zero thin& that needs an audience, call (415) 648- 3561 any day between 3 and5 p.m. and invite lt'I defmitely underaround, in the best sense tolerance for flashy guitar pyrotechnics that of the word. MOil of Ibo soap are pretty serve no purpose but to showcuo an yourself to perform. rn look forward to ina yoa slow, a leut In 1a1111 of what I'm used to, individual musician'• technical ability. So I see there. and often hypnotic (I know some people fmd it all llle more rem.lcable that Slim's equate that with "borina". but r m listen�• guitar playing pleases me so mnch. What it NEUROTICS, ICld.,_,,l•I • Bael:flrllll _ N.,lo•,LP ato 3the tape Lm. while I type this and 11'1 11111011J111 to is that Slim is not bullshittina not p.uina meto sleep). ll'I pretty hard IO around, and more imporllDlly, ho lets llle piponhole the I01IDd; the sona playing right guitar play him u muc:h u the er way T h ii is a totally areat live � recordina of a· totally cool English band now hu echoes of, believe it or not, early around. And the raw emotion and TRAFFIC, andu is the case with -ly any understanding that coma pourina out CID be coverina 10 ol lheir old_,. and a few new ones. The drummina is totally excellen&. The pos1-19go poap that delves into the moody breathtaking. A1 hi• lonatime musical and Ind melancbolic, ._ ii bound to detect a life partner Baby Lee say1, "Whoa he's vocals are totally clear and snouy. Totally e recommended, dudes! JOY DIVISION influence, but 09rall BOMB playing bi1 rc,al stuff, be can make you i:ry a-e h igbly oriamaJ. They even manage to use and come II lbe 1111111 time." a saxophone, one of the most abused (in terms Slim WU in f"me form thil night al "Fragile Life": Tlti1 tlil11111i111 of self-indulaence) instrumenll in modem the Crossroads, which is clearly becoming the poverty i1 ;.-rtal GIid music, to create some hauntingly beautiful best place for live music in the north county. MMt:CIIGr,, There'.r liulc cue for sounds. And in a sudden departure from the Baby Lee unfortunately blew an amp early on tltc old who brok.c tltcir btu:k.r overall tone of the tape, the song playing now in the mow and so wun't able to take u much lfWWIII so-body cl.re WCGltlay year distinctly reminds me of the GRATEFUL of a part in the proceedings u usual, so this after year, lt'.r Glwo.y.r, Glway, the DEAD in their AMcrica BHuty gig became more or less the Indiana Slim .rGMC: the throwi11r o f crlllftb.r to tit. Worki11g1114111'.r DCGd period. This band bears show. And that ain't bad; check these guys ,..,,.,ry watcbin&, and now that they've started out first chance you geL aiuin& in the SF area, rm looking forward to ..Joe Britz a chance tocheclc them out live . ...Lawrence

EBP-DA | www.eastbaypunkda.com sm AND NANCY, moYle, directed by "" TEN TALL MEN, Nlt:hlbr•llt, 12"EP, analysis, well gounded in philosophical 111d Alex COll Box 7813, Berkeley CA 94707 scientific theory, of the state of modem culture. Anyone should have seen it coming; Another band that's tough to Mr. Flanagan's thesis, as miaht ten years down the road, it's time for the classify, though Mai- Rocwoll 'a Tim easily be inferred, is that vinually every punlt nostalgia boom. Only trouble is, movies Yohannan, who's practically a profeuional in salient feature of western civilization can be like this are not liltely to make mybody very such matters, had no trouble labelling them traced back to and laid squarely at the nostalgic, except maybe those who think "post-punlt". Another reviewer called them doorstep of those modern Renaissance men, there's somethina romantic or fun about standard college-radio fare, though I have yet those twentieth century Leonardos, Larry, killina yourseJf on the installment plm. to hear them played over tbal medium. What Moe, and Curly. But Flanaaan does not stop at This is really more of a j■nkie I do hear is very loud and very rhythmic, such easy assertions: listen to an example of movie than a punlt rock one, and u is the case almost-but-not-quite dance music with his convincing documentation: with most junkie movies, you know from the quirky and individualistic lyrics that shows Who b11t tho S100 ... c00&1d havo 1rualated Freud 10 the maua, start bow it's 1oin1 to come OUL The main a lot of musical talent and almost no 1pradill1 his eaample thr0111h reason I went to see this one (the first in willingneu to cater to prevailing trends. If li•illa uample. ,-aifyilla th• many monthl) wu the director; his last film there's a weakness, it's· that the guiiarist• wacky id (C11rly, of COllrN), tho was the ab1olute clu1ic "Repo Man." "Sid miclclle-of•th-• eao ( lhal Larry ), singer-songwriter often appears to domiaare ud the 1ver-rauaillill1 111pere10 and Nancy" i• nowhere near as aood u that, the proceedinas: fd like to hear more of an (oh. lhet Moel ). What Mlf.■-ific:el due mostly to its lack of humor and ensemble effect, especially with scme lhlrecl, Could we wly uaderslluld the peat depre1sin1 subject matter. The funniest or at least backin1 vocals. But overall, aa Pread'1 theorie■ wltho■t the SUIOpl7 We lhiak aaL thin1 I can remember is that the actor impressive, and creative debuL In 1imilar fashion, Flana1111 shows playing Jobamy Rotten looked and talked more bow the Stooaes defined and shaped such like John Lennon. I had to wonder if that wu ...Lawrem:e thin11 u lirerature, sexual morel, politics, a comciou1 ltatcment on the director's part. Hey, I had some fm time• back in '77, but c art, the papacy, the Iranian revolution, the THE M GUIRES, St•rl Br••tll.l••• LP, thi1 movie sure didn't remind me of many of Rl1hteou1 Records, Box 6111, San Ford aclministration and the CIA (an almost complelely Stooae-like endeavorl), and even them. Francisco CA '4101 the most 1ipificant cultural development of My experience with this record wu all. rock md roll. You owe it to y o■rseJf to almost enouah to make me 1ive up doinl read this boot. But don't buy· it until this PunkBEAT reviews at all, because I was once aaain a•Y lowen the price. In lhe meantime, go reminded of how utterly subjective any bans out at your local book store and read it writsrssmoktl long t'Hftll'S coo/ . there. After all, what would the Stoop1 do? undtlrmoonlit rooms under review has IO be. I started out prepared IO cofft1t1tablsscluttered withbad poetry detest this record before I even put it on the Probably wait for the movie, ccme to think of musicianssmoke thesame jay turntable, baled mainly OD the accompaayinl it; hffe yoa ev• - any of those l■nkbeads with longinhaling_ btwaths promo maierial, which wu III embarrauingly readinl anythinl more demanding than a Ikea s,mtntllirlg'blUtl held note amateurish imitation of yo■r typical racina form? sustaintldthtl oass line throbbinglow in yaurgut Hollywood h■cluterism ("Thea py1 are DOl pai_nttlrStake a hit andat look youthrough patteredeyes their hysteria gsttiflg only the peatest thin1 since sliced bread, l»autiluJlf"1gogh saw mad k;ve bmsom they're seJf-lOlstin1"). And sure enoulh, by IOStlS wihbrutal thorns tumtldsttltll P!Jint the Ihm rd belld the fin& couple of-•••I thesmoke tlXha/tldfloat$ abowtheirhtlads was ready to ton it out the window. It wreathchristllce IOUllded limp, whiny, and eucdy the son of they•ar their cmwns thedipptld in poison post-mw wave tripe that KUSF daily poll■tu theymalctl llctl badges lhe airwlffl with. given thelicenstl to destrov they oot for But then I WU in • really bad mood lhtlchaos that comes f,rst1rom snt{PPYthtlfl tbal day (so what else ii new, ask those who thebliss of pun, energy pu_nkBEA T m.ytlal'S achtlbut thepanr isnot tlflOIJ9h know me well). A week or two laler, feslina a theybeat l!P pt{nkstfont_ bit more ellplDlive, I decided to give the tt,sy? 1 yo!Jsmoke a intwith l)ladC hipsttll'S M cGUIRES IIIOlher chmce (after all, they'd t,, given me their record). Gueu what? I almost �Bfi>;g:roff:l:,I,•:t,-g =:J:,"gands lilted it! rve lillened to it a couple more it's wet on thetlfld and somehowyou fHI times since, and it's still a little limp and Okea rulbrother to him FIPking htlrb whiny, but I pas I feel that way myself withhis soil it's cool and htl buys aoff bag ya sometimes. Anyway, it's DOl that bad, well beatpunk hiohoo rasta what's tht1di? recorded and fairly easy to lillell to, though rollmy armssinks in d crushtld a/ass I'm not sure I could wholeheartedly f,nmy headwith thtl readings of Ginsberg recommend 1'aat myone who more or less playing_with the Clash share• my musical tastes should buy iL Call i l'fiad1