HARD FICTION NO.1 1 PRINTED IN AUSTIN TX 2 PRINTED IN AUSTIN TX HARD FICTION No. 1 SPRING 20153 ISSUE ONE: “DESPERATELY SEEKING VALIDATION” FEATURE SKYLAR SPENCE . 35 FICTION “9/2011” . 11 “THE ALTRUISM APP” . 25 “SHERPAS” . 13 “MASON TARLEN” . 29 “BEYOND 140” . 16 “DREAMS” . 44 “GEN” . 18 “AFTER” . 52 4 I’m in the magazine aisle at Hastings. My beef with magazines is that most of them exist with the tacit intent of selling you something. Men’s magazines sell you all the clothes you’re not wearing and consumer oriented ideals of masculinity. Sports magazines sell you all the things you’re not achieving and consumer oriented ideals of masculinity. Celebrity mags: the beautiful people that you’re not. Travel: the beautiful places where you’re not. Plastic wrapped Adult mags sell you back your own desire for women which itself will be used at some point by advertisers to encourage your desire for all of the above. Music mags knead your inflated superiority about your up to the minute fandom while confirming how behind everyone else is.Their game is what you’re already privy to, encouraging you to stay ahead. As shills of entire industries derived off our own sense of lack, it’s the job of magazine editors to create a version of the universe that is selectively incomplete, one that ignores all the details that undermine the fantasies of the reader. End of the day, each publication offers an aesthetic ideal to pursue with your wallet as an act of self improvement, and this is why they all usually end up disappointing. Said ideals will simply fail to integrate with hard, complicated reality, and thus fail to affect as anything more than another diversion of encouraged wants. (I’m not immediately sure about how coherent all this is on paper. There’s the overpowering airborne toxicity of a breached septic tank and right now my head hurts. Something is very wrong at this Hastings.) But while it certainly sucks that most magazines’ ideas of self-improvement have more to do with commodities than personalities, I think that’s what’s good about straightforward, unambiguous, hard Fiction; not only does it have nothing material to offer you, but any ideals in its selective universe can be digested for what they are. We know it’s all just a story, and sometimes that story can help you navigate life a lot better than the covetable things that exist in the spreads. Within an economy of dreams stringing you along with their maybe someday attain- ability, Fiction is the outstanding product in which your own want is irrelevant to the material itself. Without the standard obligation to make you feel lacking it’s free to examine anything with the widest net. I don’t see it going too well for the publication that begins its run with the lofty aspirations of totally devaluing the influence of our accustomed symbols and challenging all the unexamined protocols of the 21st century. That’s not what I want this thing to be. Too abstract. Best not to stray too far from real human beings. Talk of the “cul- ture” and you’re always ignoring something crawling under the rock, just out of sight, which I think is much much closer to what Resin Bit is about: invisible byproducts, the tar and smoldering leftovers of the cultural high just outside the common visibility of the comfort zone. What does the Hastings magazine rack look like after being chewed up and shit out? What un- seen cancer did its consumption leave in us? We commence this zine by tackling our own perceived place in the world. The first issue: Des- perately Seeking Validation, invites you to get over yourself and any ideas of self-importance. Although fear and desire are the most common elements of any good piece of Hard Fiction, consider during this issue their relevance to attention seeking. Ask: what are we avoiding with our pursuits? How often are our desires the product of our culture, or vice-versa? How many ways can we trick ourselves into feeling approved of? “Mason Tarlen” is about people striving to feel like they made a dent in the universe. In “Dreams” a doomed couple wanders a hypnagogic kingdom in the Summer of 2014, each haunted by the anxiety of being watched and the pretense that everything’s gonna be okay. Thematically I don’t see any one thread throught his whole issue. Really, I might just be working through some stuff. As it stands though, glaring at the latest Esquire cover with the stench of stagnant waste in my nostrils, the question in my gut is: If the gaze of others is what necessarily shapes us while young, what is then the best way to go about practicing autonomy as a grownup, and, even if we were to ever know, what forces would then stand to prevent us from ever wanting anything more than what we think we’re sup- posed to want? Also: Skylar Spence. Nice guy. 5 5 THINGS THAT WHORES MATTER It was around the 7th grade when I started letting my classmates punch me in 1) The strange excitement I get the face for the attention. I was undersized whenever the Amber Alert sign describes the and got in plenty of fights, so I was really exact make and model of the car I’m driving good at taking punches to the face. It began with my friends but soon and other people start changing lanes to get I’d let anyone do it. Sometimes there’d be behind me. crowds. Maybe it was because I tried to 2) Experimenting with giving myself avoid tearing up like a little bitch in public an affect disorder by constantly passing Asian or because I was so eager to be recog- MILF porn through my retinas until I feel nei- nized for something I was good at, but ther highs nor lows. there wasn’t a day for maybe four or five years that I wasn’t taking punches to the 3) A theme park ride that simulates face. being butchered with machetes and having Based of what people said after your head smashed with a rock in some third they took a good hard shot at me and world failed state. Then, after you’re good and then had to explain themselves to all the witnesses that weren’t really in on it, I think traumatized, on the walk out offers you pic- the reputation I had was of someone who tures and T-shirts to buy of you on the ride, flat didn’t really feel pain, or at least had a and wincing on the ground. (Unless of course higher tolerance of it in his face area. you flipped off the camera during the flash. People would introduce me to their They just delete those pictures.) friends who I didn’t know and tell them, go ahead. Don’t feel bad. That’s just his thing, 4) Breaking down in the lap of the it’s what he’s good at. plastic Ronald McDonald sitting on a bench It didn’t ever get me girls, just really, and sobbing myself raw under his outstretched really good at taking punches to the face. arm until I look up and see him smiling Nowadays, whenever I see desper- optimistically into the distance and there’s a ate shit like that, maybe someone on the diluted feeling that maybe everything’s gonna internet taking pictures of themselves or be okay. covertly trying to get told they’re attractive, demanding attention while not actually doing anything but enacting for the world 5) The feeling of, “s/he must never their own desire to be acknowledged while know” when meeting a new person. humiliating themselves in the most natural, adapted ways; I see a little kid version of that person, just old enough to catch a hint of how big and complicated and apathetic RESIN BIT: The everyday temptation to the world really is. The kid, who more than abandon all superego and expel everyone anything just wants to be seen--to matter in from your life with a full commitment to a giormous universe run by invisible giants, histrionic childish behavior, ignoring all I see that kid getting punched in the face, social expectations for interacting with over and over, then wiping the blood off his lip and going, yeah naw I’m cool. Y’all saw others, until the only possible view anyone that right? Wasn’t that awesome. It was could have of you is one of annoyance awesome wasn’t it? What about you? It and dismissible pity, leaving you you to feel good to you? Wanna try it again? Y’all live in your own little world of reinforced wanna see him do it again? dickishness where you will always be king. 6 7 Dear Starlight Casting, Thank you for considering me for the part in your movie. Having read the script, I am confident that I am the perfect candidate for role of Man Wrestling Dog For Pocket Change. I think if cast I can bring a realism and familiarity to the part that others simply don’t have the personal investment to convey. After spending many days pondering my own unique interpretation of the character, I can promise that once I have auditioned, the extraordinary quality of my performance will attest to the time I have spent practicing my arm bars and choke holds on subjects roughly the size of an actual dog.