In This Issue:

Mike Edison Frederica Fray Hyena Hell W. Joe Hoppe John Morton Christopher Schipper Kelly Shriver DID YOU KNOW... That wealthly white women are now SECRETLY BUTCHERING AND EATING PANDAS as part of a SATANIC RITUAL promising ETERNAL BEAUTY??

Only OBSOLETE! Magazine covers the stories that really matter. Unencumbered by corporate media dollars, journalistic standards or so- called “facts”, you can count on the team at OBSOLETE! to deliver the stories to you quickly, when you need them most- four times a year (more or less). Why not show your support for publishing excellence by subscribing, donating or buying OBSOLETE! swag?

Your money goes toward keeping the underground newspaper alive. Although most of it goes to the dying beast known as the United States Post Office, a portion actually trick- les down to the poor saps who contribute their WRITING and ART to this rag.

Please Visit: They don’t even understand obsoletemag.blogspot.com/ what is about to happen to to contribute using paypal or them. Poor stupid things. send cash or checks to: OBSOLETE!, PO Box 72, Victor, IA, 52347

We now accept Bitcoin! email us at: [email protected] for details. Only your hard-earned cash can keep OBSOLETE! (and these PANDAS) ALIVE!!!

Library, and aspires to be an archivist or rare books librarian. She lives in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, with her husband and four cats. Contributors John Morton was born in Cleveland Ohio sometime. He started the nascent [proto][proto] punk band the electric eels in 1972. As a visual artist Morton has exhib- Tim Beckett has been caught up for far too long writing a novel about his home- ited world wide including Havana Cuba and MOMA in NYC. His current band is the town, Uranium City, a near ghost town in Northern Canada. He has received a couple “Dunking Swine of Chelsea.” of writing grants from the Canada Council and would dearly love a couple more. He is editor and contributor for Sensitive Skin Magazine. He is currently hiding out in Chris Schipper is a godless heathen living in deeply conservative Jeeeeeezus land, Brooklyn. More of his writing can be seen at http://www.tim-beckett.com. in the geographically stunning Four Corners region of New Mexico, where some of the more visible residents are gun nuts who drive massive monster truck vehicles. Mike Edison is a New York-based writer, editor, musician, and spoken word artist. Chris was born and raised in Eastern Iowa, and counts Cedar Rapids and Iowa City He was the publisher of marijuana counterculture magazine High Times, and was among his past homes. Chris moved to NM in 2006 with his partner of then nine later named editor-in-chief of Screw, the self-proclaimed “World’s Greatest News- years, and with Emma the cat. In 2009, he and partner traveled back to progressive paper.” In his memoir I Have Fun Everywhere I Go, Edison recounts his adventures Iowa to be married (Emma stayed in NM). The couple now also shares their home across twenty years of druggy adventurism and his parallel careers as a magazine with kitties Buster, and Max. Chris is the director of the library at San Juan College editor, writer, and musician. His new book, Dirty! Dirty! Dirty!: Of Playboys, Pigs, and – a position he’s officially held for more than a year. Chris enjoys hiking, photography, Penthouse Paupers, An American Tale of Sex and Wonder will be published Fall 2011 gardening, and frequent trips to also enjoy more urban amenities. by Soft Skull Press. Kelly Shriver lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Her short fiction has appeared online in Frederica Fray, Anti-Christ guru, fashions herself in Iowa as a college philosophy McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Pindeldyboz, Juked, and 3:AM Magazine. She also professor, (specialty: philosophy of mind/brain), and believes she is descendant of co-edits Bound Off, a monthly literary audio magazine available for free at boundoff. the one, the only, true human, viz., Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche— the only delusion com and iTunes. Read more of her stories at kellyshriver.com. she’ll ascribe. When she’s not screaming, “The robots are coming! The robots are coming!!” she’s probably yelling “GOD IS DEAD!” as she drives by you, or making some kind of movie to expose the follies of magical thinking. She can be found sitting The OBSOLETE! Team is: on her couch, all over YouTube and somewhere on Facebook. Otherwise, she doesn’t exist. Rich Dana: Editor, publisher, anarcho-syndicalist scout master W. Joe Hoppe grew up the rust belt city of Jackson, Michigan but has lived in Aus- Ericka Wildgirl Dana: Photographer, human spell-check and feral cat wrangler tin, TX for the last twenty years with artist Polly Monear and their son Max. He has published one book-length collection of poetry, Galvanized ((www.daltonpublishing. Blair Gauntt: Art Director, illustrator, resident Charlie Callas scholar com). Along with teaching English and Creative Writing at Austin Community College, he enjoys writing and wrenching on old Mopars. Eric Houts: Contributing editor, punctuation czar, indispensable niggler Hyena Hell is a printmaker, illustrator and comic book artist currently residing in the capitol of self destruction, geographically located in New Orleans. She is currently imprisoned as a paper mache artist in a giant sweat shop making Mardi Gras floats. In her spare time she enjoys chasing people out of bars with her obnoxious juke box selections, drunkenly wrecking her bike, and yelling belligerently at inanimate objects. She can be tracked down on facebook, where you might work out a deal to Contact: purchase some of her snake oil. OBSOLETE!, PO Box 72, Charlotte T. Jackson is a writer of literary non-fiction, poetry, opera libretti, and miscellaneous scribblings. Her work has appeared in the Raleigh News and Observer Victor, IA, 52347 and the City of Strangers blog, and will soon appear in Sensitive Skin Magazine. She crafted the libretto for the contemporary opera The Rat Land, by composer Gordon [email protected] Beeferman, which will be performed in L.A. in 2013; scenes from their upcoming burlesque opera revue, The Enchanted Organ, will be workshopped this winter in New York at Dixon Place. In addition to writing, Ms. Jackson works at the Brooklyn College OBmag no. 4 The Senihilism issue Senile: /see-nahy-ul/ Having or showing the weaknesses or diseases of old age, esp. a loss of mental faculties.

Nihilism: /nahy-uh-liz-uhm/ 1. total rejection of established laws and institutions. 2. anarchy, terrorism, or other revolutionary activity.

Here’s how it went down. Political unrest in the Middle East drove up fuel prices and the cost of living. A protracted war against a seemingly undefeatable indigenous guerilla force sucked the national coffers dry. A gutless democrat president was steamrolled by corporatist republicans and downturns in housing and manufacturing dragged the economy into recession and sent unemployment to record highs. And Ronald Reagan was elected President. It was in that atmosphere of post-Vietnam imperial decline that punk came of age. Nihilism was the message. The government and society had sold out the American people. Older hip- pies were well down the path toward yuppiedom, so punks chose to start their own alterna- tive culture. Punk was based not on the collectivist optimism of the psychedelic generation, but more on a vision of a DIY culture rising from the ashes of mundane mainsteam middle- America. Punk bands booked their own tours, pressed their own records, designed their own flyers. Punk artists took to the streets or started their own galleries. Punk writers published their own ‘zines. A subculture grew and punks flourished, without the permission of the growing corporatocracy. Punk was the last best hope for a life outside the establishment system. In the 90’s, many punks, now in their 30’s, sadly but not unexpectedly took the opportunity to sneak back into the middle class from whence they came. The Clintonian neo-liberal tech- boom train was leaving the station, and “alternative” college rock enthusiasts rushed to get on board, following their hippie elders into the world of khaki pants and retirement accounts. The new breed of assembly line worker was being born. Not on the factory floor- oh no, President Clinton made sure that those jobs went overseas- but rather in the climate con- trolled cubicles of the former punk outposts like San Francisco, Seattle and Lower Manhat- tan. But this assembly line is better! You could listen to your favorite punk tunes (through headphones), wear your Chuck Taylor Allstars (to signify that you are “thinking outside of the box”) AND the cafeteria has organic and vegetarian options! Ex-punks had babies, and brought children into a future that just a few years before they Now, in the era of “austerity,” jobs are scarce and the establishment is once again selling out thought would not exist. Back then, they were thrashing in a pit while the Circle Jerks sang the American people. But this time there is no youth movement in sight. Surveillance society “ I went to see a rabbi, but despite his advise, I want an operation I will not father life! and digital culture has apparently stolen the punk babies souls. They need to be shown the Operation, operation, snip & tie, snip & tie!” Suddenly they are getting their musical cues way. They can’t learn it all from reading Maximum Rock and Roll, after all. It’s time for old from the bumper music on “All Things Considered” while they haul a van full of brats with punks to rediscover their roots. To re-activate. To take back the mantle of nihilism and rage food allergies to be coached by some stay-at-home dad, whose liberal arts college degree in like there is no tomorrow. What is there to lose? Jump off the train. Before it’s too late, be- humanities and ability to kick a soccer ball has drawn him the short straw while his formerly fore the anti-depressants, craft-brewed beer and vegan cupcakes take away the last of your pink-haired, pierced-nosed wife (with an MBA) drinks single malt scotch in a hotel bar at a will to fight. The punk generation needs to go “senihl”. conference in Phoenix. So here’s how it’s going to go down... Through it all, a few aging punks keep the faith. They missed the train, or fell off the train, or in many cases, the train ran them over. They were born without the business gene, or Political unrest in the Middle East drove up fuel prices and the cost of living. A protracted they just never gave a shit about money. Some would sell out if they could, but addiction, war against a seemingly undefeatable indigenous guerilla force sucked the national coffers depression, psychosis or other mental or personality disorders don’t allow it. The DIY spirit dry. A gutless democrat president was steamrolled by corporatist republicans and downturns keeps them alive. They do for themselves. They still know how to survive without the system in housing and manufacturing dragged the economy into recession and sent unemployment to promoting their own shit, selling their own shit, scraping by. Times are tough again, but they record highs. And ??? will be elected President. still know the ropes. Time to dig out the Circle Jerks records. minutes since we last saw him. We ordered beer and bourbon and got down to drinking seriously.

Knievel was with his “manager,” whom we quickly nick-named “The Op- erator.” A tall, handsome black guy with an incredible line of patter, he was keeping an eye on Evel, who was getting increasingly pie-eyed with each successive round.

“Don’t worry about a thing,” The Operator kept telling us. “Evel likes you guys. That’s all that matters.”

“Evel likes us,” Wegman would intone, trancelike, while he sucked down increasingly bizarre combinations of liquor. “That is all that matters.”

The Operator had worked with Mohammed Ali and had produced Moham- med’s dental hygiene masterpiece, the absolutely mesmerizing album Ali and His Gang vs. Tooth Decay. (Highlights include an evil Frank Sinatra peddling molar-munching ice cream to children; Ali discussing the benefits of fluoride with Richie Havens; and “The Fight Song,” which features How- ard Cosell’s play-by-play of the big match between Ali and his arch enemy, Mr. Tooth Decay. “We’ve got the stuff to run him away from here,” says Ali, “just like I did George Foreman over in Zaire.”) The Operator had also worked with Ali on some ill-founded merchandise schemes, like Ali Cham- pion Brand Shoe Polish.

Knievel was in town for the opening of the Vegas Hard Rock Café, to whom he said he had sold his Sky Cycle, the piece of shit he had banged into the side of the Snake River Canyon, etching forever another chapter of Knievel Heroics. He had a check he kept waving around for some crazy amount, twenty thousand bucks or something, claiming that he sold the Sky Cycle for a million dollars and that this was only part of the payment. But for some If you can define a “hero” by how much your reason he was having trouble cashing it. We kept on drinking. Since no one in Las Vegas ever wants to hear about an uncashed check, I was paying for parents hated him, Evel Knievel was the single the drinks. Later I’d send the bill to High Society. We were telling dirty jokes, greatest man who ever lived. flirting with the bartenders, talking shit, and getting very fucked up. “Evel,” I said, “We gotta get you in the magazine. We’ll build you a new Sky Cycle, you can jump over some girls.” by Mike Edison (from his book I Have Fun Everywhere I Go: Savage Tales of Pot, Porn, Punk Rock, Pro Wres- “If you need anything in Vegas,” Evel told me, “Just call me. I’m at the tling, Talking Apes, Evil Bosses, Dirty Blues, American Heroes, and the Most Notorious Magazines Aladdin, room 1234. You can remember that. If I can remember that, you in the World ) can. I like you guys.” We drank to that. Quite a few times. Eventually Knievel became so drunk he could no longer sign autographs for the fans that would When we arrived at the Hacienda, my immediate reaction was to take a occasionally get the nerve to approach him — he kept getting stuck on the shower. The red vinyl booths were greasy, the chips dirty and worn. Even big “E” in “Evel.” The bartender had to take his pen away. I promised I the air was slightly jaundiced. It felt forgotten, its cowboy motif hopelessly would call him. dated. It would meet a similar fate as the Sands: it was imploded in 1996 with 1,100 pounds of dynamite to make room for an eye-bummer called The next day, after a horrifying food frenzy at the Circus Circus buffet, we “Mandalay Bay.” rented a car, floated it over to the Liberace Museum, and then to the Fred G. Sanford Junk Shop, where Redd Foxx was selling tons of his stuff to help Redd Foxx killed, finishing his set with the classic Ya Gotta Wash Yer Ass pay off the IRS. (“not your whole ass, just your ass hole”) routine. He was filthier than the Hacienda’s all-night coffee shop, and the crowd of low-rollers loved it. At the It was kind of sad to see him in a storefront selling boxes of crap —I don’t end of the show Redd thanked a few people in the audience, adding, “I want to get too far into the politics of the IRS and foul-mouthed black wanna say hello to my friend Evel Knievel. Evel, stand up!” entertainers, but they really did fuck Foxx, swarming on his house like a S.W.A.T. team with a vengeance, in front of television news Evel did his best impersonation of someone standing up. After cameras, with Redd cordoned off and watching helplessly in his years of grinding his skeletal system into kindling, he was shaped underwear. I guess that taught somebody a lesson. more like a question mark than an exclamation point. But he got our attention, that’s for sure. But he was very nice to us and we walked out with some of the junk that the IRS had passed on — a case of twenty-year-old cans of If you can define a “hero” by how much your parents hated him, Evel Redd Foxx hairspray, some absolutely hideous ceramic candle- Knievel was the single greatest man who ever lived. Fuck Neil holders in the shape of ducks wearing top hats (From the Armstrong — Knievel jumped the fountain at Caesar’s Palace on Foxx living room? I could only imagine what the rest a motorcycle! And the results were incredible. He rolled of it looked like), and some Redd Foxx: The Man, about a mile with half a ton of Harley Davidson stuck to The Entertainer paperbacks which he signed for his head. us. Then I called Knievel.

Everyone I know had attempted some sort of half- Evel sounded paranoid when he answered assed Knievel stunt when they were a kid. I per- the phone. “Who’s this?” he demanded. sonally broke my nose and spent a day in the dentist’s chair after going ass-over-tea-kettle “The Boys from High Society.” trying to jump three Big Wheel tricycles on my Raleigh Chopper. “Who’s with you?”

We had to meet Knievel. We had to pay “It’s just us…” our respects to a True American Original. He was easy to spot in the crowd, “Are you sure?” dressed as he was in a perfectly Evel red, white, and blue spangled shirt, tight I didn’t quite know what to make black jeans and lizard-skin cowboy boots. of that. I looked around. I didn’t see He reeked of daredevil. anyone. I told him I was sure.

“Mr. Knievel,” I said, “We’re from High Society “Call me when you get to the Aladdin. I’ll magazine. We wanted to say hello. We’re huge fans meet you at the bar downstairs.” of yours.” When we got to the bar, we called, as Evel stopped. He looked deadly serious, but he still car- instructed. Again: “Who are you with?” ried the captain-of-the-football-team good looks, cleft chin and “It’s just us.” “Are you sure??” He told blues eyes, like a shell-shocked version of Paul Newman. us to wait for him.

“High Society,” he drawled. “Great magazine. I love the girls. The Knievel that appeared today was Meet me at the Shark Club. Tell the guy at the door you’re with not the same man we were with at me.” And he was off. the Shark Club. He was wearing a blue Oxford shirt and half-moon glasses and Journalists such as we were, we found the Shark Club with looked like he had aged forty years since little problem. It was a discotheque off the strip that catered the night before. The Operator was with him. mostly to locals. Out-of-towners were asked to pay admission, but when we declared that we were “with Evel” the velvet Knievel bellied up to the bar and ordered a Budweiser and a shot rope was dropped along with the cover. Knievel’s name com- of bourbon. “What the fuck are you drinking?” he asked me. manded respect! (Thinking back, there may have also been a slight look of pity in the doorman’s eye, although I really “Just beer. I’m driving.” couldn’t be sure at this late date.) I asked one of the bouncers if he had seen Evel. “Just look for the closest bar,” he hur- “Fuck that. Drink bourbon. I saw you last night, Edison. You’re rumphed. out of your fucking mind, like me. You’re crazy.”

There were five or six bars circling the dance floor, and sure Me, crazy? This is the guy who tried to jump thirteen double- enough, Evel was at the one nearest the door. “What the wheeled buses at Wembley and ended up bouncing about thirty fuck took you guys so long?” he demanded. It had been ten feet in the air. This is the guy who thought he could fly a contrap- tion called a “Sky Cycle” over a canyon. He had broken his neck more times than Mother Theresa had said the Holy Rosary. I ordered some whisky.

We pitched Evel our idea for him to write a column for High Society, and he loved it. “Do you know,” he told us shrewdly, “Why women with big breasts are stupid? Because it takes so much blood to operate their tits that their brains can’t function properly.” Sure, that made sense. “Listen,” he told us, “I’m not a doctor, but I know plenty of them, so you can believe me.”

“And you know what I hate? Actors. You know why? Because that’s all they can do... act. What I do is real. Fuck George Hamilton. What does he know about being me? All actors are bullshit. I hate fucking George Hamilton. Fuck him.”

After just a few drinks he was visibly drunk. He was still waving his check around asking the bartender if he could cash it, and trying to pick up every cocktail waitress in the place. His basic technique was to holler “Hey, do you wanna sleep with me tonight?” The girls did not rally around for a Touch of Evel, and it quickly became obvious that he had been hanging around the hotel for a while now, working the same material, and everyone was getting a little tired of his routine.

Pretty soon he insisted I drive them to the Mirage, presumably so he could wave the check around at a fresh audience. I had a few in me, but I was game. I very carefully aimed the rent-a-car down The Strip. Knievel rode shotgun. “It is better,” he proclaimed, paraphrasing Teddy Roosevelt, “to do mighty things and win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure and defeat, than to live in that gray twilight of those poor spirits who enjoy neither victory or defeat, because they don’t have the balls to try either one.”

I managed to get the car back safely to Circus Circus, and the next day we post-beat, pre-apocalyptic ART, WRITING, MUSIC and WHAT-NOT left for New York. When we called him a few days later to get cracking on his column, he was nowhere to be found, and the women who answered the www.sensitiveskinmagazine.com phone numbers he gave us weren’t all that willing to help us, or him.

In those days Wegman and I liked to cruise hotel bars for cute tourist chicks (with a zero-percent success rate), and one night we ran into The Operator, who had been nice enough after our Vegas jag to send us some of that Mo- hammed Ali Shoe Polish. Now our feet looked just like the Champ’s.

“The Boys from High Society!” he grinned. He was happy to see us and invited us to join him for a few rounds. The entire time we were drinking he h h was rifling through his little black book and trying to find a date, getting up GOT GRASS? every few minutes to use the payphone. He must have called about twenty women. He was striking out miserably and getting increasingly desperate. Finally, he just took us to dinner.

He had a car waiting and we went to this great soul food restaurant way up- town. The dining room was designed like a basketball court — all hard wood with foul lines and a basket at one end — and there was a small jazz combo playing. We ordered fried chicken, collard greens, candied yams, mac and cheese, biscuits and gravy, and drank spiked lemonade in Ball jars. “Evel is very busy. But he likes you boys,” The Operator reminded us.

“That’s all that matters,” added Wegman.

The Operator was working on some sort of scheme with Evel for another Canyon jump, but this time Evel was going to get paid not to do it. People would call a national prayer line and try to convince Evel to call off the stunt and save his own life. Each call would cost a couple of bucks. Eventually Evel would see the light, and America would be spared the tragedy of an- other dead hero. It sounded like a good plan. I know I would have called.

“He was never going to make it across the Canyon the first time,” The Op- erator confessed. “We knew he wouldn’t make it after the prototype failed. But he was supposed to land softly in the middle. The fucked up thing is that Evel can’t swim. He was terrified he was going to drown.” h h Finally The Operator connected with one of his girlfriends. He picked up the www.catnipfarm.com check and disappeared into the night, leaving us with our fortified lemon- Your source for excellent organic catnip, kitty greens/pet grass ades, dreaming of Snake River, and knowing in our hearts that Evel liked us. YYY and other good stuff for pets and people! YYY Nothing else mattered.

Look for DIRTY! DIRTY! DIRTY! of Playboys, Pigs, and Penthouse Paupers - AN AMERICAN TALE OF SEX AND WONDER by Mike Edison Available October 2011 International Sensational Exposè Bradly Field was the drummer for Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, He died of aids in the hospital ward of Rikers island.

“I,” the the These passages have been excerpted founder from of autobiography of John D Morton ain’t dead yet. in 1972 Cleveland & he electric eels (written & illustrated by John D Morton) OLD PUNKS NEVER FADE AWAY; THEY JUST DIE. Pere and briefly with (when you know that Rocket from the Tombs hit “Ain’t it Fun” Guns n Roses Peter Laughner was a guitarist for Ubu. He co-wrote the you're gonna’ die young.) And so he did, at the age of 24 on June 22, 1977.

OLD PUNKS NEVER FADE AWAY; THEY JUST DIE. APOCALYPSE NOW? by Frederica Fray

Illustration by Hyena Hell Chicken Little’s been really busy. Apocalypse squawkers “brain” will increase. Just as even 10 years ago one could “You have to have men who are moral... and at the same have been at it for some time. From those I can find, starting still find most people loathe to believe human expression time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill with the first Christian one declared 30 CE, barely ten years from mood swings, to mental illness, to political persuasions, without feeling... without passion... without judgment... after the alleged death of Jesus, there have been 100’s, had no basis in nature, we’re almost to the point, (at least in without judgment! Because it’s judgment that defeats us.” ~ 1000’s other failed predictions, and yet, still, more ‘hopes scientific communities), where we can not only say, “there’s Kurtz, Apocalypse Now for heaven’ are in the works.1 While the Judaeo-Christian a gene for that!” but also soon probably also, “there’s an app tradition, fueled by a few fuzzy passages in the Bible is what for that!” (There is an ‘Apocalypse App’, by the way, a “free You might also gain the insight his photo journalist... brought us “Apocalypse” or “Armageddon” proper, ‘end of mobile app about the prediction and facts of some cata- world’ predictions can be found in every major world religion strophic events that may happen in 2012”). “This is the way the fucking world ends! Look at this fucking and “god” knows in probably every other nook and cranny shit we’re in, man! Not with a bang, but with a whimper. And of human history. It’s not religion, per se, that holds the Mental illness is widely recognized as inheritable, as hav- with a whimper, I’m fucking splitting, Jack.” -- Photo Journal- rights to end of world predictions, but associated with all of ing a genetic foundation triggered one way or another by ist, Apocalypse Now them, even the Mayan scenario we’ve yet to look forward to environmental factors, but only if the potentiality of the gene December 21, 2012, is notion a supernatural and/or karmic first exists. People now actually seem to find it comforting to And though traumatized and tense he was, Martin Sheen’s force is at play and makes decisions about the moral worth link mental pathology to genes; it shifts the stigma in some “Willard” did see crazy, and he wasn’t really buying human behavior. A universal ‘Santa’, so to speak, who way. One no longer has to feel ashamed for being bi-polar if it. Through all the trauma he endured in Viet Nam, he knows if you’ve been “naughty or nice” and will adjust the they can say, “I got it from my dad”. remained committed to vigilance and a sense for data-based world, your life, your mind, accordingly... on a certain day. reality... knowing taking one’s eye off the prize, namely a bet- But again, religious ideation and apocalyptic ideation are not ter, healthier world, could compromise everything. If you’re reading this, you probably aren’t dead. Even the the same. Or are they? latest May 21st Harold Camping cult cry failed. But here’s “Are you crazy, Goddammit? Don’t you think it’s a little risky the deal, and a prediction I’m assuming most can agree: you In terms of numbers, no. That is, the number of people who for some R&R?” ~ WIllard, Apocalypse Now are going to die. In ‘an end of world’ sweep, conjured by attach to apocalyptic anthem is far less than those who suit wrath, a supernatural force with strong (and twisted) sense up with sin, salvation, and higher powers. But in terms of Crazy? Hopefully everyone identifies a decent tinge in of “right” and “wrong”? Yeah, um, probably not. At least content, how different are they? oneself. Risky? To let one’s guard down and let the re- it would seem the odds are about as good as winning the al crazies step into power? “You betcha!” But in response lottery, getting struck by lightning, and becoming Pope-- all in I’d like to posit, (while I still have time), there really is not to these doomsday drones, to chill out and not pray the day the same day. much difference. Both posit a supernatural, both entail delu- away in hopes you’ll be sent to hang with dead people still sional reference pattern, (the mechanism whereby mistaken live, is that risky? Nah. Relax; pull up a chair, crack one So what’s with the Chicken Littles? beliefs that innocent events relate especially to you), both open, watch the parade of lunacy go by. “The end”, “a can be associated with persecution and grandeur postures, rapture” is as likely OBL was watching porn all those years The ‘Henny Penny’ fable, while origins unknown, is yet one (“God is going to punish us! Repent now and yee shall be he was MIA. (Wait, what?! Really?!?) OK, so it’s as likely more symptomatic expression in keeping with ‘termination saved!!... And by the way, my mind is so great as to KNOW Jim Morrison sang “This is the end” sober, rather, “unintoxi- tales’ humans have been crafting for eons. That these mes- this is the case. Hence, think like me, and yee shall be cated” as he was seemingly very sober about that whole sages resonate, that they exist, they get press, capture the saved!”), and both associate humans’ “bad” behaviors as thing, about life, about doom, about gloom. attention of the world, must tell us something... something the cause of “bad” things, like seismic shifts, the current about ourselves. formation of the continents, flowers losing their petals, and Not you, right? You’ve every reason to be happy and the oceans. (Those examples were meant to highlight the optimistic. We are destroying the earth, natural re- The first thought with explanatory power one might have absurdity, in case you wondered). sources are being depleted, wars are being fought, more is: ‘People are fucking crazy, man’. Like, crazy as a hopped and more natural disasters will take place and destroy up Hopper spun out on too much death and too many trips in So are we back to ‘people are fucking nuts’? Is this merely countless lives... and until the robots get here full on, full depths Degar. and only delusion? I mean, sure, there are more clinical time, nothing will change, nothing ever has changed for ways to articulate the psychological condition I’m proposing humanity. We’re still trying to work it out. And we will ‘til “One through nine, no maybes, no supposes, no fractions. propels one to latch onto lunacy. One could appeal to Freud’s the day we die, in which case the next generation will do as You can’t travel in space, you can’t go out into space, you death instinct, or more apropos, to DSM schizo, schizotipal, we have, namely, think they’re living the time span in which know, without, like, you know, uh, with fractions - what are psychotic, narcissistic, and/or delusional criteria to diagnose the world will end... and so on and such as until the sun you going to land on - one-quarter, three-eighths? What are and explain, but the common denominator in all those condi- melts it/us all away. you going to do when you go from here to Venus or some- tions is... “crazy”. And a lot of that crazy fits right into social thing? That’s dialectic physics.” ~ Photo Journalist- Apoca- constructs held on high. (Think “church”). Disaster is natural. Natural can be disastrous. The end is lypse Now. inevitable. A little bit of crazy goes a long way... a lot a bit of Ah, c’mon, Frederica! It must be more complicated than crazy just goes away. All those past, present and future ‘end But why? Why are people crazy specifically in this ‘end of that! The Mayans worked really hard at calculating time of world’ days will come and go and the rest of us will only world’ kind of way? Given the consistent and ironic ‘staying (tzolk’in, trecena cycles, blah and blah), and Harold Camping be the wiser, and still alive. And yet, tune in next year, or the power’ of doomsday scenarios, (how can they stay when spent 35 years staring at those Bible passages!! next, and then the next for those who will always, and much everything’s supposed to go?), it might be suggested that to our amusement be... completely... fucking... crazy. people, perhaps since the beginning of people, propose Yes, people are working really hard to make sense of the ‘end of world’ scenarios because of an innate, albeit out of world. We do this everyday. Japan’s recent crumble, more ------whack, instinct or predilection for gruesome and grandiose floods, government and corporate scandals, random deaths, ----- grovel. Just as studies suggest humans are capable of “the gays”... wait, WHAT!?! Sorry; no good spiel on the sustaining two emotions at once, say for example, while en- apocalypse can pass without mentioning “the gays”, for at joying a horror film one can be ‘happy to be unhappy’, so may the heart of religious doom, homosexuality seems prime people ultimately get off on imagining their own demise?2 mover. And perhaps rightly so as for ‘the crazies’ their fear Otherwise, what would be the appeal of the chronic nature of homosexuality is likely product a Freudian style ‘reaction these absurdist annihilation anthems? formation’-- the real prime mover behind that delusion. And, what of “the heterosexuals” by the way? What’s their contri- What is it about ‘apocalyptic’ or ‘end of world” predictions bution to world demise? Last I knew they were the majority that have such appeal? And how many people really want to and thereby statistically causing most trouble for the human purchase an immortality ticket? How many people actually, species whenever “trouble” is to be found. (And I leave that (like, for real), believe these predictions? word open for definition, but insert maybe ‘wife beating’ as just one example). Hard to say. I tried to find solid stats; most I could find were various polls that suggest about 22% of Americans are hope- What it all points to, in any case, is we’re pattern seek- ful, (at least they were for the May 21st rapture), and a large ers, some of us more than others. OCD, autism, temporal number of people in the Netherlands visit a certain survival- lobe epilepsy, magnetic manipulation of brain regions, a ist website associated with Camping’s followers and the whole host of brain conditions (normal and ab) provide us preparation for 2012. (Dudes, drugs are legal in your coun- evidence that the seeking, the counting, the obsessing, the try... light up! I mean, lighten up!). A 2010 Pew Research gloom-latching, the penchant for ‘magical explanations is poll shows 41% of American’s believe Jesus is to ‘brother innate. But, again, why? Why would these mechanisms get from another planet’ before 2050. Apocalypse-America? US selected into the human brain especially when they’re so, peeps may dig demise the most? um, “crazy’? (Not to say ‘crazy’ can’t also be cool...). But with Camping’s ‘crazy’ come and gone, people can shift Because we have to find our way home. No, literally. Evo- gears now and prepare the Mayan prediction; that one lutionarily, if conscious creatures with minds like Sapiens seems to be taken more seriously anyway, and is gaining didn’t have propensity for pattern seeking, we’d be really prodigious popularity. Even in 2008, ABC news reports, “A lost. (Where did that street go? The one I took last time simple Google search for “2012” and “the end of the world” after I was on another street and on another street before brings up nearly 300,000 hits. And the video-sharing Web that?) If the human brain didn’t naturally ‘causalize’ things, site YouTube hosts more than 65,000 clips informing and and look for ways to make sense in ways that allow us warning viewers about their fate in 2012”.3 You can imagine categories, familiar reference points, etc., then we’d really how these numbers have increased, (I got 1,020,000 results). be looking at an apocalyptic scenario, but this one would just be a naturalistic train wreck wherein everybody smashes With no scientific evidence to found these predictions, into everybody because nothing is retained as familiar and with fact even Mayan scholars think the 2012 predic- patterned. tion is mentalistic mayhem... people believe. How is this possible? How can that many people be thinking about But why the doom? Order does not have to entail doom. For or truly believe such scatter shot? better explanations of the ‘doomy’, one might look closely at the doomer’s childhood and probably find a pattern of Well, what about those who truly believe anything? abuse. (Fred Phelps and crew are good fodder for that ‘Certainty’ is an odd yet common psychological state to hypothesis).4 One could look closely at the brain and find maintain. Odd because mathematically it’s impossible, com- a pattern of abohorent chemistry. Or one could look at mon because, well, most everybody’s doing it. natural events and humans’ inability to make sense of them scientifically, and find now a belief system which entails the If only 2-12% of Americans, and also of world population, perception of “bad” things needing to be offset with belief are skeptics and non-theists, (as per the average of BBC, in “good”; supernatural both the ‘bad’ and ‘good’. And Gallup, and Pew Research polls), then approximately 88% should we not, that is, not look for naturalistic explanations are absolutists... about something. The 88%’rs have access why these things happen and opt for magical explanations a state of mind the skeptical minority does not. But believing instead, we’re going to always, in our lifetime, think things in a higher power isn’t like believing in an apocalypse (is it?), are worse than they ever have been. so again, what’s up? “God is great, beer is good and people are crazy...”, so The evidence that belief in anything supernatural is based the chart topping country song goes. But they can’t all be in genetics is piling. I predict, with all the non-apocalyptic true. An inconsistent set of premises. And if you can guess prowess I can muster, the ‘end of faith’ will one day dawn which one contradicts another, you might be able to hang in the hominid despite genetic inclinations to the contrary. As Kurtz’s cave for an apocalypse later. neuroscience jabber becomes household jargon, the more ‘genetic speak’ trickles down the ceilings of MIT to the shelves of Wal-Mart, so the household ability to speak in Ridin’with Sweet Lady Propane A few notes about propane powered vehicles by W. Joe Hoppe photos by P.S. Monear Here in Texas it’s pretty much a given that every family needs at least one pick-up truck. And everybody knows that old trucks are way cooler (and infinitely more afford- able) than new ones. Even though there are lots of arguments for old cars and trucks being less damaging to the environment than newer vehicles, claims that re-use zeros out pollution over time, concern with the toxic chemicals, petrochemicals, and silicone in new cars, lead or other heavy metals in batteries, etc, there’s no denying that old trucks from the pre-catalytic converter days pump out a lot of hydrocarbons when you’re driving them around. So I’ve got to admit that driving around Austin in my ‘71 Dodge pick-up, even with its economical and bulletproof slant six engine (225 cubic inch displacement) made me feel like I was more of a problem than a solution in the fight against global warming. Fortunately, there’s a lot of information out there on the interweb about convert- ing your vehicle to propane. And even more fortunate for me, one of the country’s premiere gurus, Franz Hoffmann (http://franzh.home.texas.net/) lives about 30 miles away in Bastrop, Texas. I also was able to access a lot of good advice through a website devoted specifically to slant six engines at www.slantsix.org. After some research, I decided to take the plunge and convert my truck whole hog, not to some system that would switch back and forth from gas to propane, but a deep commitment to Sweet Lady Propane, and only Sweet Lady Propane. One advantage that quickly becomes obvious is that you get to make a lot of “King of the Hill” jokes. Chemically, propane comes from the distillation process when crude oil gets con- verted to gasoline. It’s a by-product. All of those flares and flames at an oil refinery? That’s propane being burned off. So in an environmental sense, you’re making use of something that is being underutilized in general, and making more complete use of an existing product. This doesn’t get around all of the inherent evils of the petroleum industry, but it does lend to a deeper effectiveness, which can’t be too bad. ADVANTAGES OF PROPANE CONVERSION Although it’s called propane what one really is buying is liquid petroleum gas, or LPG, which --Clean burning and extremely small hydrocarbon emissions is a mixture of propane and butane (Hank --Since it’s already a gas, more equal fuel distribution to all cylinders Hill calls it a “bastard gas” for reasons --Since under pressure, not effected by gravity, hills, etc (rockclimbers make extensive we won’t get into here). LPG is readily use of propane) available, although generally expensive, --Smoother idle, easy cold weather starting at U-Haul stores and RV centers. It’s much --High octane (approx. 108) so engine’s compression and efficiency easily raised less expensive at places that sell propane --Unique and different (or more accurately LPG) for rural heating, --Hank Hill references galore etc. The last time I filled up the thirty gal- lon tank in the back of my truck, propane DISADVANTAGES OF PROPANE CONVERSION was three dollars a gallon. That’s about --fewer BTU’s (British Thermal Units) than gasoline –poorer gas mileage by at least 33% eighty cents less than a gallon of gas. --fueling stations can be difficult to find When travelling in Texas, I use a book put --really doesn’t save you any money out by the Propane Association that lists --need to buy yearly propane tax sticker (in Texas, anyways) fuel sources in towns across the state. I’ve --hard to find knowledgeable mechanics—you’ll need to do most of your own work used it in trips to Houston and San Anto- nio, but should probably get an updated SO… version. Odds are that most states have It took me about a year to get all the bugs out, but I’ve been running w/ Sweet Lady Pro- some equivalent directory. pane pretty much trouble free for two years now. If you can resign yourself to the poor gas mileage, and having to plan ahead to get a fill up, going propane is definitely recommended. LPG is pumped into a tank under pres- I’ve got the satisfaction of driving an old vehicle but not pumping out hydrocarbons, and I’m sure in liquid form. It turns into a gas driving something different that I’ve done all by myself. somewhere around 20 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, but pressure keeps it a liquid. Places for more info: Propane burns clean. The exhaust of my Raso Enterprises Alternative Fuels Discussion Board: truck has fewer hydrocarbons than a brand http://fuelsforum.rasoenterprises.com/index.php?sid=fde616a2181c78c8e58931c40539055d new car. Info on Impco Propane Delivery Systems: http://www.propane.tx.gov/commercial/7stepimpcosystem.pdf The conversion, if you are working with an older carbureted engine, is simple as well. Basically you’ll need four main components: Franz Hoffmann’s Alternative Fuel Site: http://franzh.home.texas.net/ 1. A propane tank – this needs to be sturdy and build for the specific purpose of storing liquid petroleum. It should include a blow-off valve and a gauge. I have a 30 gallon tank in the bed of my pick-up. Trucks are probably the easiest vehicles to convert because all you have to do is give up some bed space for the tank. Tanks are usually cylindrical, and can be found in auctions of state and municipal vehicles and their parts (many City of Austin vehicles run on propane) or in areas where there are lots of oil wells, as often oil riggers will have converted vehicles that make use of a cheap and plentiful gasoline by-product. The tank can cost a couple of hundred bucks, but often you can find them used for much less. 2. A vacuum shut-off valve—this is a safety device that uses engine vacuum when the engine is being started to release propane, which is under pressure, from the tank. 3. A vaporizer/regulator – this part has two functions, even though the propane is going to come out in vapor form unless you’re in a very cold place, it just makes sure by diverting hot water from the truck’s heater core in order to vaporize the propane. The regulator functions just like the regulator on a scuba tank, ensuring proper flow to the next piece you’ll need— 4. A mixer---what gets mixed is the propane and air. There’s a big diaphragm in the top of the mixer that helps with this process. Just like any air fuel mixture, some- where between 16:1 and 18:1 is the ideal proportion between air and fuel. In my truck, the mixer is bolted to the throttle plates of an old Carter BBD carburetor to control the mix of fuel and air being sucked into the engine. Since the propane is under pressure, a fuel pump is not needed. Important note: because of less density than gas droplet/fuel mixture usually found in an engine’s combustion chamber, you must upgrade your engine’s ignition system as well. All told, parts for a conversion should run between $1,000-1,500. “What’s going to become of libraries?” by Christopher Schipper As the last bullet point above indicates, financial support for libraries is sadly lacking. In New A bright young Canadian woman asked me this question recently, as we waited, sheltered Mexico, we have a bond initiative to support libraries, but the measure requires voter ap- from an afternoon downpour, for a streetcar to return us downtown from the New Orleans proval every two years. This “book bond” came into being as a way for the voters to supple- Museum of Art. The subtext to her question was unmistakable: the eventual demise of librar- ment the lack of legislative support for libraries throughout the state. In the run-up to the last ies, in her mind, was a foregone conclusion. Such questions, sad to say, are neither unique, bond approval, I was called a dirty Marxist for making the case that libraries in the state are nor surprising. Reasons for such assumptions are obvious: the rise of the internet has made under-funded, and desperately in need of the money that the bond represents! While libraries libraries, in the minds of many, superfluous. Financial support for institutions of education are hardly a socialist enterprise, the return on investment is impressive, if one considers the and culture has been in sharp decline for years; a recessionary economy makes the future of bullet point above (average checkouts: 7 books per year). libraries perilous. At San Juan College, we serve a terrifically diverse demographic, with widely varied infor- If the future of libraries is uncertain, the fate of the great city of New Orleans was even less mational and technological needs and expectations. During my short time here (I began work certain not so long ago. I was in town recently for the American Library Association’s annual here in 2006), I’ve noticed a shift from non-traditional students, to a younger demographic; conference, as I had been five years before. Ten short months after the disastrous hurricanes students who have just completed high school, and have never known a time without Inter- Katrina and Rita, and the devastating flooding of the city, ALA opted to go ahead with plans net. With ready access to web-based information, and a lifetime of technology skills, what for the annual conference. Flood debris still littered much of the city, high water marks were use do younger, tech-savvy students have for libraries? Can the internet serve as a viable clearly visible, and many storefronts were empty. The people of New Orleans were warm and substitute for libraries? If one considers the internet to be a library of sorts, one would also gracious, but the city seemed a shell of her former self. With a diminished population – and have to concede that it is a very poorly organized library, and one that grows by staggering tax base, the future of New Orleans seemed pretty shaky. degree every day; portions of the internet are available only at a cost (e.g. – research data- bases and other subscriptions). Libraries provide resources that assist students in this regard; When I read predictions of doom for libraries, I am now reminded of remarks I heard at the access to subscription-based research databases is a common feature at US academic librar- more recent ALA conference, most notably from the current mayor of New Orleans. I learned ies, and professional staff (i.e. – reference librarians) that is skilled in assisting users with that, in the aftermath of the storm, governmental officials made a crucial realization: that the navigation of the internet and other complex information media. libraries are an essential community component; in the days and weeks following Katrina, residents flocked to their libraries, to obtain information, and to communicate with loved Younger students are oftentimes not traditional readers, and some never have owned a book. ones. Conference attendees were delighted to hear that, with this in mind, New Orleans will Many of our youngest students seem not to recognize the value of print formats; they lack have added twenty libraries by the end of 2011. In doing so, New Orleans has made an im- familiarity with standard research strategies such as the use of the subject indexes that are portant investment in its future (this is no small accomplishment in the current ‘cut my taxes’ commonly found in the back of books. Any reading that these students do is more commonly political environment). from an electronic screen – a reality that today’s library ignores at its peril. Our library must also recognize and support the variety of learning styles that exist among our students. It was not until the main collection of the Cedar Rapids Public Library (where I worked for 13 Kindles that utilize a text-to-speech function are invaluable for our developmental or dyslexic years) went underwater that, through the tireless efforts of my former colleagues, the federal students. Our library has five Kindles available to borrow; we have recently purchased three government (FEMA) finally declared libraries to be an essential service. It’s important at this Nooks for circulation as well. We have approximately 70,000 volumes in our print collection, point to also note that, while the CRPL print collection was destroyed, that library endures. but also about 25,000 e-book titles. My point is that we strive to meet the needs of all of our users, and do so using a successful integra- Let’s consider for a moment what we mean by: library. These days, whether or not the tion of formats; we offer books, magazines, word library represents a physical place is an open question for debate. Many of us have journals, electronic articles, e-books, Kindles, fond childhood memories of visiting the local library – often a Carnegie Library, themselves Nooks - successfully, and without incident. architectural monuments to Knowledge. Carnegie libraries were long the centerpiece of To do otherwise is truly to risk obsolescence, hundreds of small towns and cities; classically designed, and laden with books for commu- particularly among younger library users. nity use and enrichment (libraries, incidentally, represent another American institution that Lacking an adequate array of useful re- is nearly extinct: the shared public space). Libraries, however, have never been only about sources, and a well trained staff, a traditional books. Besides the Internet, technology has created what many regard as the greatest threat library is little more than a room full of books, to the printed word and to libraries: the e-book. Indeed, I have many well-intentioned, pas- in the eyes of our youngest (and future) users sionate lovers and defenders of libraries, who regard the relationship between these formats – and a dinosaur. Incidentally – we still spend as a competition – in other words, a zero sum game. Concerns that technology will replace more on print books than just about anything beloved print editions are not without basis – a number of libraries have done exactly that, else. but for a number of reasons, I can’t see that happening everywhere any time soon. Time magazine recently published an article (“Is a Bookless Library Still a Library?”) that considers I don’t know what the future of libraries in the this question. Personally, I think a library without books would be a contradiction in terms, US holds. The liquidation of bookstore giant but this a possibility. Information is now available in more formats than ever before; people Borders is in the news today. A political solu- use different formats because of different needs. Libraries are about much more than just the tion to the nation’s budget and debt crises books they house – they’ve always been about connecting people with the information that is proving elusive. Adequate funding for the they want or need; officials in New Orleans understand this, and the future of libraries in that nation’s libraries may assume diminished pri- great city, for now, is bright. ority over time, but this would be penny wise, but pound foolish; voters are tragically unable I’m the director of the campus library at San Juan College – a two-year school located in or unwilling to recognize the connection Farmington – in a remote and rural part of Northwest New Mexico. Farmington is often between the taxes, and the services such as referred to as a border town, because of its proximity to the Navajo Nation. Our geographic libraries that many take for granted. Libraries location contributes to a very significant digital divide (the chasm between those who have represent an invaluable repository of knowl- access to the internet and those who do not), making any predictions for the obsolescence edge, culture and human achievement – and of print wildly premature. While we have e-books available for use, our print collection is a means for most of our citizens to actualize still heavily used – in part because some of our users lack what many of us take for granted: their own potential. Libraries have always home internet access, a personal computer, and in some cases – electricity. If not for the evolved; a decent library is a dynamic thing, library, many library users would lack access to not only the internet, but information that but one that cannot afford to stagnate. is essential to their lives. In today’s political climate, perhaps the very egalitarian nature of libraries motivates some of the questions related to the value of libraries. While uncertainty about the viability and future of libraries (and despite the rise of the internet) persists, their continued use is not at all in question: • Library use continues to climb. Sixty-eight percent of adults in the U.S. have public library cards, the greatest number since the ALA began collecting this data in 1990. • Americans visit libraries more than 1.3 billion times and check out more than 2.1 billion items each year. Users turn to their libraries for free books, to borrow DVDs, to learn new computer skills, to conduct job searches and more. • Americans go to school, public and academic libraries 50 percent more often than they go to the movies. • A 2006 poll conducted by the American Library Association found that 92 percent of respondents expect libraries to be needed in the future, despite the increased availability of information on the Internet. • Nationally, the average user takes out more than seven books a year . . . but users turn to their libraries for more than books: to borrow DVDs, to learn new computer skills, to conduct job searches, and to participate in the activities of local and community organizations. • Nearly all Americans (96 percent) – even if they are not regular library visitors – agree that libraries play an important role in giving everyone a chance to succeed. They support our public education and lifelong learning. • There are now more public library buildings in the U.S. than there are McDonald’s – a total of 16,592, including branches. • Library use continues to rise – public library visits exceed 1.3 billion, and libraries circulate more items than Fed Ex ships – more than 2.1 billion books, CDs, DVDs and more. • Americans check out on average more than seven books a year. They spend about $31 for the public library – about the cost of one hardcover book. • Americans spend about two-and-a-half times as much on salty snacks as they do on public librar- ies. (http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/advocacy/advocacyuniversity/toolkit/talkingpoints/ libraryuse.cfm) The Origin of the Drug Pyramid: An excerpt from the Rev. Timothy Clarity’s memoir “And On the Eighth Day, God Tripped” The booze delegates came late and disheveled but really got the party Finally, one good thing came out of the man-made guys. The head By Kelly Shriver started, as usual. They showed us a good time, made their points, and tweaker from the speed lobby offered to pay the whole bill for the got better and better at convincing us as the night wore on. That’s how room, including minibar. Nobody considered his offer a kickback When the Drug Pyramid idea came to me back in 1992, the Big Booze secured the biggest tier on the Pyramid. Tobacco claimed or unfair sponsorship, to my relief. He bragged that he had been wheels in my mind that had been spinning in place for so long the next largest. Nobody would ever begrudge the smokes that status, working four jobs, threw a roll of bills on the desk, readjusted finally caught onto something and sped off. I proposed the since smokers make up such a huge subset of drinkers. After some his gigantic belt buckle, and joined his buddies in the corner who Pyramid, as an improvement upon the Four Basic Drug Groups, non-violent argument, we placed marijuana and cocaine, then heroin were taking apart the irons and one of the TVs. I picked up the to a coalition of substance representatives at the second Lol- and its cohorts, in progressively smaller spots. At the very top we had cash for safekeeping, since the heroin guys had seen it land and lapalooza. We sat on the lawn of the big outdoor amphitheater, the natural hallucinogens like shrooms and peyote. I had brought a dry they were the most paranoid about the unnatural drugs taking witnessing all that was wrong with the so-called counterculture. erase board and an easel, and it was all mapped out by ten that night. away their space in the Pyramid. Packs of middle-class white kids were twirling and tripping with We had arrived at the point of celebration, partying in perfect balance their dads’ money. Just yards away from us they tried to burn according to the Pyramid’s recommendations. Meanwhile, my marks on the white board were starting to look down the place, igniting bonfires on the lawn and ripping up the like gibberish. The political maneuvering and backstabbing con- turf to make mud pits. “What are you for? What are you Then there was a knock at the door. I shushed everyone tinued, rising to a delusional level. Mescaline was arguing that it against?” I yelled through the smoke. My Pyramid, as I checked the peephole. The front desk had should get the next tier up from alcohol. They had sent their Road my creation, would be different. We would already sent a lady named Pearl to check on us Chief and Earth Mother to claim special religious rights. That’s a build something beautiful, not tear it all twice. nice vision, but completely unrealistic. down. In the hallway stood three skate rat I wanted to curl up on an empty bed and let it all resolve itself Most of the people around us were teenagers holding a bunch of brown behind my eyelids. But first, I had caffeine up my ass. drunk, thus I predicted that alcohol paper bags and sprayed-out cans of would inhabit the biggest tier of whipped cream. We tried to send They showed up just past midnight, looking like the pinks that the Drug Pyramid, the base. So them away, but they said they had they are, with their Polo shirts and Jeep Cherokees with the many drugs come from fruits hitchhiked there, didn’t even have AYSO bumper stickers. Nobody had invited them, but they and vegetables; the rest was al- their licenses yet. They were weren’t leaving. It was like something out of The Art of War: they most too obvious. This became so noisy, we had to let them in seized control when we were most vulnerable. apparent in the Great Woods before they blew our whole cover. men’s room, when a young guy I set them up on one of the beds, You wouldn’t believe the power of the caffeine lobby. Obviously, in blond dreadlocks offered me and they seemed content as we didn’t consider them worthy of inclusion. They found out and some mushrooms while the Red long as their Nintendo cord could went apeshit. The caffeine pushers don’t have as much money as Hot Chili Peppers were on stage reach them. “Just watch your Big Booze, but each one has the energy of ten alcohol lobbyists. playing “Taste the Pain” from fumes,” I said. “Do you realize how As everyone else faded away or freaked out, caffeine gained Mother’s Milk. many lighters there are in here?” steam. They didn’t need to eat or sleep. Every time they came back after sneaking cigarettes in the parking lot they were even I announced that we’d create the That’s when everything started to veer more jumpy. official Drug Pyramid the next day. off course. I hadn’t realized how the Some reps had missed Lollapalooza, like word would spread among the man-made So I let go. I gave in. the cocaine guys who’d had to work, and I shit. Up to then, I’d been thinking that our called them up to invite them to the summit. Drug Pyramid would focus on all-natural ingre- Someone must have slipped a mind-cleansing drug into my Pepsi. I told everyone we’d meet at a hotel off the Mass dients. It would be tough to fit in all of the plant- I had been leaning against the white wicker headboard, rubbing Pike, drove up the next day in my Gremlin, and checked based mood enhancers, but we were up for the challenge. my stubbled cheeks with the gravity of an elder statesman. Now into two adjoining suites. I registered as Bob Dobbs and the pinks Manufactured drugs were not part of my plan. my face felt smooth, unlined. The cracks and yellow stains on at the front desk never got it. the ceiling disappeared: The Drug Pyramid rose up, and it would They arrived wearing t-shirts with their letters ironed on: MDMA/X, include everything and everyone, all the drugs that were so dear It was really too bad that the concept hadn’t come to us a month PCP, MPH, GHB, Special K, a really trippy alphabet soup. As you can to all of us, and all of the people who we loved so much who earlier, when we had gone to protest the same-old same-old at imagine, I had to babysit the LSD rep for a few hours, she was so up- were using them. It spun and whirled in its three-dimensional the Democratic National Convention in New York. But I’d been set. Given our long history, she thought we’d be able to work her into a glory, kicking the ass of any flat, triangular pyramid. And it didn’t a few days or decades late for everything in my life. I was ten in prime spot on the Pyramid graphic. She had her doctorate in chemistry, need my help at all. It lived. ‘68, and by the time I was old enough to understand what I had and the persuasive lecture she spouted was incomprehensible to me. missed, only drugs could tele-transport me back. The true hippies It took a lot of positive talk to guide her mind to a happier place. I tried to announce my revelation, but it was hard to get every- were gone and their yuppie replacements completely freaked me one’s attention at that point. The ecstacy users in their jester hats out. So I stayed underground, off the grid, as much as I could. Around that same time, Big Booze started to make no sense at all. One came over to caress their approval, but the others had become After a brief tour of the SUNY system, I headed south to labor of them disappeared into the bathroom to puke, then passed out on so competitive – as if I had pitted them against each other. Or with my hands for a while. Working at a print shop in Dallas, I the couch. Another one took off with some bird from the tea industry (I they had passed out. I vowed to dole out drug advice in strictly came across a brochure for the Church of the SubGenius; it would never did find out who let her in). controlled small groups from that moment on. I found the booze fill my spiritual void. I was ordained as a minister in 1982, and I was juggling everything, trying not to let it overwhelm me. The key and pot guys all together, scraping pizza cheese from some boxes at the time I thought I had mounted the ultimate protest against was to stay in control, to avoid making that bad decision that would someone had thrown into the bathtub. They looked so happy, I normality (I’ve been trying to top it ever since). bring down the house of cards. We were all taking the trip together, didn’t even tell them I was leaving. as we had so many times. I felt as if the success of the whole thing A decade later, as I stuck a couple of cans of beer into the tiny rested in my own head at that moment. Gathering my stuff, I saw a caffeine rep wiping off the white refrigerators at the Sturbridge Suites, I sensed my plan crystal- board and re-drawing everything in crisp, black lines and letters. lizing, if crystals could take the shape of pyramids, or at least Once the infighting began, I had some disentangling to do. LSD real- She wore creased khakis and a white button-down shirt with a triangles. Everyone was invited to the caucus: marijuana of ized that I had accepted that free spliff, and I had to make a big show coffee stain over her heart. “You’re not even a real drug,” the course, then alcohol and tobacco, the opiates, natural hallucino- of giving it back. Everyone had brought free samples and wanted me long-haired, flannel-clad heroin guys were wailing from their gens, and cocaine. I expected our ideas to converge in a natural to try some. Well, I’m a booze and pot man, always have been. I’ve stained cot. The caffeine lobby had succeeded, as it always and obvious order. dabbled in everything Mother Nature has to offer, but I always return would. to the basics (tobacco is a given). To offset my obvious bias, I started A couple of pot lobbyists knocked first, just a couple of low-level making secret promises to everyone: where they’d appear in the I threw my duffel onto the passenger’s seat of the Gremlin and dealers. I peered over the chain. “Where’s your boss? My usual Pyramid, how their drug would headed west on 90, back toward home in Woodstock. I held onto guy?” One guy had baggy pants with his underwear sticking out be depicted graphically, the amount the roll that the meth-head had put down for the rooms (the guy of the top and gold-capped teeth. “The Chronic” boomed from his of supplementary wording. had owed me two months’ rent since ‘87). I’d let the rest of them headphones. “When did my happy grass end up in songs about figure out the bill in the morning. They must have had a good people shooting each other?” I asked. The other one told me laugh about the Rev. Clarity abandoning yet another pet project, not to worry, to mellow out, in a soothing Jamaican accent. His but that’s not the way I look at it. I had moved on to a patchouli aroma calmed me, so I accepted a joint as a gesture of higher plane. goodwill and let them in. After about twenty miles, I admitted to About half an hour later, the cocaine contingent showed up. I myself that I was in no condition to was really trying to stay objective, but I’ve always thought of drive. Stopping at an all-night those guys as a bunch of pricks. They had arrived in t-shirts diner to sober up, I realized that proclaiming: “Coke. The other white stuff.” That just those little caffeine fuckers pissed me off. Why give Coca-Cola free advertising? I were right. fought for years to get that stuff out of the vending machines in the school where my kids go. And how dare they mimic the pork slogan: They had no respect for the vegans among us. But in the interest of all-inclusiveness, I kept mum. When the opioid reps arrived, I realized that I had taken for granted just how much great stuff comes from Mother Nature. I said a little group prayer, to get everyone grooving on the earth’s bounty. The heroin crew couldn’t go too long between product demos, so we gave them space to set up their equipment and displays. It was really important to maintain a friendly vibe, to keep the pizza and fresh needles coming. We definitely did not need to have the Colombians fighting with the guys from the Golden Triangle. Style is a product of it’s era. Through most of history, fashion has been a luxury of the well-to-do, and styles have reflected the morals and values of the wealthiest in a society. Working class “finery” has generally consisted of cheap knockoffs or homespun imitations of the styles of the wealthy. In the 20th and early 21st century however, the style has come up from the street, and no look has been more consistently revisited than the blue suit.

I speak not of the definitive navy blue wool business suit, that timeless uniform of the bourgeois, but of the blue denim suit- jeans and denim jacket. The “denim sandwich” or “Canadian tuxedo” has been alternately loved and reviled by fashionistas and worn unapologetically by cowboys, bikers, iron workers, farmers, punks, metal heads and hillbillies for generations. Countless designers have tried (and universally failed miserably) to improve on it- acid washed, studded, cropped, tailored, distressed, dyed- yet nothing and no one has managed to change the basic rule- only the traditional cut and color will do, and only the wearer can make the blue suit cool.

For those of us who grew up in the 60’s and 70’s, the blue suit is something we have never been without. For much of our lives, the uniform of the day has been the same timeless combination. Sometimes it has been a statement, but in general, it’s just what you wear- a habit of sorts. Riding your Stingray at 12, delivering pizzas at 18, playing in a punk band at 20, hanging drywall (or going to your copy-editing job) at 30- it’s always been there.You’ve slept in it, then gone to work in it the next day. It kept your skin on when you laid down your bike. Who fucking cares if it’s “in”? Fashion websites run articles with titles like “How to rock a denim jacket” and “How to wear a jeans jacket without looking like a douchebag”. All of them state that rule #1 is to not wear a denim jacket with jeans. I say, rule #1 is, if you ARE a douchebag, you will LOOK like a douchebag, regardless of what you are wearing.

For fans of various musical genres, though, the blue suit is nothing short of iconic. Lately it’s the favorite of rap- pers and country singers. It seems that the rappers generally know enough to stick with dark blue and opt for the high dollar Levi’s jacket. The country singers (and American idol rejects) almost universally fall for the 1980’s Jersey girl/Bon Jovi/Brighton Beach Russian housewife designer-faded shit.

For metal heads and punks, it has always been the warm-weather alternative to leather- or the jacket you wore while saving up for a biker jacket. If you see a photo of one of the Ramones not wearing a biker jacket, they are probably in a denim jacket.

The most important thing about choosing a blue suit nowadays is finding items made in the USA. Levi’s moved production overseas in the 90’s but they are currently advertising “Hand Made in the USA” jackets and jeans. However, the price tag is an astronomical 210 bucks for a jacket and 190 for a pair of 505s. Other US companies sell made in the USA jackets and jeans in the $50-$75 range- Carhartt, Pointer, All-American clothing and others.

The history of denim is the history of America, and there is still nothing so quintessentially American as blue jeans. Many a pair of Levi’s has been bartered away by broke Americans traveling abroad. As America’s star rap- idly falls and the value of the dollar drops, the blue suit is becoming once again as relevant for it’s utilitarianism as it’s style. The stream of “Oakies” that brought the denim “look” to California in the 30’s did so not as a fashion statement, but because it was the only suit of clothes that could hold up to their circumstances. It is not hard to imagine that in the new age of “austerity” that the blue suit may once again take it’s place as the “uniform of the day”.

Patsy, Window Cat by Ericka Wildgirl Dana DIRTY! DIRTY! DIRTY! of Playboys, Pigs, and Penthouse Paupers AN AMERICAN TALE OF SEX AND WONDER by Mike Edison Available October 2011- check mikeedison.com for updates!! Johnson’s ‘Me and the Devil’, blues and even folk, book- ended by the spoken word contemplations of ‘Broken Home’. “I came from a broken home,” says Scott-Heron. Then: “I did not become someone different, that I did not want to be.” It’s impossible to separate the album from Scott-Heron’s death, and indeed the album plays like a long meditation on his fall, his addiction. But is most remarkable is how Scott- REVIEWS Heron’s voice remained pure until the end. Galvanized W. Joe Hoppe First Four EPs W. Joe Hoppe is a long-time veteran of the Austin, Texas OFF! poetry scene, but his new collection of poems, Galvanized, takes us on an epic road trip all over the Heartland: from OFF! Is everything a middle-aged American punk could want Sioux Falls in a ’66 Barracuda to the Cadillac Ranch, from in a disk. A veritable hardcore supergroup, OFF! features Minneapolis’s Skid Row to the neonatal ICU at this book’s members of the Circle Jerks, Red Kross and Rocket from the core. This muscular free verse feels 3-D, like tuck-and-roll Crypt. Even the name is a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the era upholstery under your thighs, with Hoppe’s all-American angry DIY thrash rock, bracketing the singer Keith Morris’ twang booming from the AM dial as he points out some career which started in Blag Flag. Get it? Black Flag? OFF!? offbeat roadside attraction. Perhaps not so clever, but it works. The goofy bug spray ref- erence seems as spontaneous and unedited as the title (First This poet’s a hands-on guy, so it’s just as likely that the 4 EPs) and the classic Raymond Pettibone cover art, but the muscle car in is up on blocks getting a good scraping. True to music is as brutal and tight and energetic as any hardcore his beginnings in a tool-and-die shop in Jackson, Michigan, record from the golden age of California punk. Hoppe is the bard of hex-nuts; a master of Zen and the Art of Mopar Maintenance, with a former janitor’s eagle eye. Morris’ vocals are as powerful as they were in the heyday He’s also a full-time dad, a teacher, a cartoon fanatic, and of the Circle Jerks, and Dimitri Coats (Burning Brides), Steve an intellectual who wears his culture as naturally as a biker Shane McDonald (Redd Kross), and Mario Rubalcaba (Rocket jacket. His unregenerately American idiom welds together From The Crypt/Hot Snakes) show no signs of slowing down Cezanne and Looney Toons, Goethe and hairy eyeballs, Texas with age, either. The songs are classic Morris anthems of swagger and Midwestern restraint. For every high-octane alienation. Sadly (but perhaps not surprisingly) many of the poem, like the Evil Knievel fantasy of “The Sky Has Fallen complaints the Circle Jerks had with Reagan’s America of the and the Night Has Broke,” there’s a diamond-cut still life: 80’s are as relevant for a 50 year old today as they were for a say, “Each Second Shining,” which details “stainless steel 25 year old then. In “I Don’t Belong”, Morris screams: hex nuts/falling like raindrops/to a polished concrete floor.” God and democracy Galvanized lives up to its name: it leaves its readers Red carpet royalty “aroused to awareness or action,” awakening them to the I’m standing in the shadows beauty and weirdness of everyday things. By some alchemy And I’m pissing in the punchbowl peculiar to poetry, it also seems to Galvanize the post-indus- trial landscape Hoppe inhabits, coating the iron and steel From “Blast”: artifacts left behind for salvage with the rust-proof zinc of I slashed and burned through my 15 minutes of fame art. and now it’s time to extinguish the flame I’m New Here but that’s alright ‘cause I wouldn’t have it any other way Gil Scott Heron This is a band paying like they have nothing to lose. Like Just Kids Gil Scott Heron released his last album ‘I’m New Here’, just so many in their generation, they are working stiffs whose Patti Smith one year before he died at age 62. The album was produced brief brush with corporate cash left them high and dry, while by XL Records’ Richard Russell, who visited Scott-Heron scrubbed and coiffed Hot Topic wearing imitators signed for As anyone who has read the voluminous reviews last year in Riker’s Island where Scott-Heron was serving time for the big money. Bitter but unbroken, they lay claim to what is knows, ‘Just Kids’ is Patti Smiths account of her first years in cocaine-related charges, and proposed this album. Be glad New York with and Robert Mapplethorpe. They were indeed he did, ‘I’m New Here’ is mesmerizing, by turns scorching, ‘just kids’, shipped in, respectively, from Deptford Township, sad, meditative and, frankly, heartbreaking. There is little of New Jersey and outer Queens. They were in love. Mappletho- the humor of ‘Whitey On the Moon’ or the great ‘The Revolu- rpe was at first the ideal boyfriend: sweet, attentive, with an tion Will Not Be Televised’, little of the buoyant energy that unusual flair for housekeeping and a singular dedication to his animated his great songs about addiction ‘The Bottle’ and art. When he started hustling, he wasn’t so ideal, but he and ‘Angel Dust’. This is the album of a man who, according Patti remained devoted to each other just the same. to a New Yorker article that came out last year, sat on his burn-covered couch smoking crack while he was being in- Reading this book a few blocks from where they first lived in terviewed, who seemed to care little for anyone or anything Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, an area as thoroughly gentrified now as beyond crack. most of Manhattan, is an exercise in nostalgia. I recognize the squalid flats with the uncertain plumbing, the air of decay and Yet he must have cared, to show the passion he does on his neglect that were the lifeline of the young bohemian class of album. my day. Until the late 90’s, these places still existed in New York, and other great metropolises of the West. No more. Here, the highly political satirist and observer of the 60’s and 70’s turns inward. Poetic meditations laid over minimalist What is remarkable in this journey of provincials into the big electro and bass alternate with a soulful version of Bobby city, was how accessible everything was. If you could scope Bland’s ‘I’ll Take Care of You’, a wrenching version of Robert your way into a box-sized room in the Chelsea Hotel, you could fraternize with William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, and even Salvador Dali. You could run into Jimi Hendrix in the downstairs bar/ café, be invited to see Janis Joplin re- cord ‘Me and Bobby McGhee’. With a little work you could insinuate yourself into the back room of Max’s Kansas City and what was left of the Warhol scene. You could be part of the new movement of poets and musicians that would become punk. You could live in squalor and still be at the centre of it all.

Mapplethorpe went on to make aesthetically beautiful, disturbing portraits and raised the ire of Jesse Helms with his S&M photo series. He frequented the S&M scene himself, and his later self-portraits reveal a harsh, wounded edge that are in stark contrast to the sweetness of the photographs of him and Patti. Smith hints at the darkness flickering around the edge of their existence, but throughout the book has a remarkably prim tone. Very few details about the Brooklyn neighborhood where they first lived (much of which was then semi-abandoned), even less about the darker goings-on around Max’s or the Chelsea (read Jim Carroll’s ‘Forced Entries’ for a fuller portrait of the downtown scene, including early cameos by ‘Jeanie Ann’ and ‘Roger’). Even Mapplethorpe remains a little out of focus – he is dedicated, talented, sweet, yet the desires and obsessions behind his later work is only hinted at. Smith writes as if to protect not just Mapplethorpe, but her memory of their time together.

Yet, ultimately, this is part of what makes the book so enjoyable. What runs through Smith’s narrative is the in- BicylefreakshowattheNewBohemiaArtandMusicFestival!Livemusic! tensity of their commitment to art, the voyage of discovery into a city that remained as giving as it was treacherous. Rides!Awards!Doorprizesincludinga1960Corvette!Presentationofthe Where do the young Smiths and Mapplethorpes go now? "SOFUNKYIT'SFINE"travelingtrophy! newbofest.com