Three Years and We Still Suck
Issues 12-19
By The Editors of Lollipop
Issue 12: Christmas Stalking
“‘Scott, did you hear about Jeffrey Dahmer?’
‘No, what happened?”
“He was murdered in prison a week ago.”
“The name sounds familiar, who is he?”
He’s the serial killer from Milwaukee who ate some of his victims.”
“Yeah, yeah. Slayer did a song about him.”
Scott Hefflon, Prelude To A Lick
“Never one to cower from a challenge, I stash my guitar, stride into the tunnel, and pee on the third rail. Electricity jolts its way up the stream of liquid conductivity, blackening my penis and delivering billions of electrons which course through my body. I twitch and jitter violently until the pee runs out and the connection is broken. Thus, both drained and empowered, I go and play all night at Park St. without stopping and make a million dollars.”
Patrick Timony, Pee
“While on one of my periodic excursions above ground to stock up on hard water, powdered jello shots and caffeine-free diet Jolt, I chanced to run across an old acquaintance from my days at Zircon Lake High School Correctional Facility. After we exchanged greetings and a few affectionate body blows, the subject of our respective employments came up…”
William Ham, The Culture Bunker
“Before Hetfield and the boys began writing brooding masterpieces and filming arty back and white videos, they wrote skull-crushing tunes filled with roaring and intelligent vocals, non-stop guitar crunching and riffing, and drumming that plodded like an elephant or raced like a pissed-off suburban rebel in a soup-up Chevelle. Mary Beats Jane returns to that primal source without all the trimmings of post-metal artiness. These guys play power chords.”
Scott Hefflon, Mary Beats Jane
Issue 13: Open Heart Insert Pick AxE
“Dusty, stinky gunslingers doing the solo-male-bonding thing: Drinking ’til they puke or pass out… trying to impress/get it up for the jaded bar wenches in fetching finery; and, more likely than not, beating the living shit out of each other…”
Chaz Thorndike, Baby, Baby Baby, Where Did Our Love Go?
“My favorite women are the ones I used to fight with. Out loud or to myself. There weren’t many, but they were strong. Maybe stronger than me. The first and favorite to rip my heart out was Joby.”
Austin Nash, I Need These Things to Kill Me
“Look at your penis. A small, pathetically weak and disgusting looking lump of flesh, hair, and spent fluids. Yet this ugly thing runs your life. If you’re so horny, jack off. Genetic traits that come from YOU deserve to be spent on your sheets.”
Smak, Mate, Spawn, And Die
“I don’t trust angels. I think they’re a wonderful idea, but I wouldn’t trust the bastards for a second.”
Neil Gaiman, from an interview by Meg Smith
“The three 7th graders had a club called ‘The Diamond Rams.’… One would grow up to attend Harvard on a full hockey scholarship… Another would grow up to win fame and fortune as a semi-professional lacrosse player and TV sportscaster. The third would take a road less traveled and end up in a Spanish prison trying to arrange his Converse All-Stars and baseball cap beneath his butt and head so he could sleep on the concrete floor.”
Patrick Timony, The Diamond Rams Club
Issue 14: The Fourteenth Issue
“The adulation was like a drug, but still the cocaine crept back into her life. The inside of her nose had to be trussed up with plastic… Her skin became drawn and tight like plastic too, and her hair became dry and brittle; it was reduced to four carefully combed clumps.”
Dug Lloyd, Trailer Park Barbie
“Citing disappointing sales of their debut, Our Debut, which was finally released 45 minutes ago, Erektra has ordered the entire pressing melted and reshaped into a bust of the band members hiding their faces in shame.”
William Ham, The Culture Bunker
“The not so awful secret of [‘zine] success is ‘ad sales.’ This may put off some. But it’s really not so different from hustling retired New York transit workers during the summer on the Jersey Shore. By the Fourth of July it seems almost normal, and by Labor Day, donning a paper hat for 40 hours a week behind a counter at Taste-T-Freeze looks damned peculiar by comparison.”
Mitchell Greentower, How To Start Your Own ‘Zine Part I
“‘Against the 70’s’ is an out-and-out punk rocker… The fact that spokesman for a generation, Eddie Vedder, sings this is both effective and ironic, considering his band is the new Bachman-Turner Overdrive.”
Chris Adams, Mike Watt
“I don’t give any credence to that line about someone being too old to play some face-stomping punk. As far as I’m concerned, all the best punk acts of today are the ones who refuse to die… With this attitude in mind, me and Bernie were pretty excited, even cagey, to go to the scum pit you call a city.”
Duke Crevenator, Fear
Issue 15: I’ve Got A Will To Power And No Idea What To Do With It
“Unlike those employed in more sane occupations, like meat packing and auto undercoating, artistic workers cannot be controlled with promises of higher pay or better hours. These creative types possess an abiding faith in something they usually call ‘artistic integrity.’ This delusional matrix provides the ‘zine publisher with both his greatest opportunity and biggest headache.”
Mitchell Greentower, How To Start Your Own ‘Zine Part 2
“Yeah
she said
the only reason
you moved from a notebook
is that you prefer the sound
the typewriter makes
when you throw itagainst the wall”
William Ham, Yeah
“There it was, the dilapidated styrofoam-peanut factory turned narrowcasting giant, nestled uncomfortably in a neighborhood that apparently had pretensions of some day achieving the renown, of, say the Bowery. Odd enough alone, I’d say, but the sight of the muscle-bound natives stripped to the waist and covered in the ceremonial regalia and body-paint of their native Peeksill, was enough to make me realize I had indeed coasted into the left ventricle of darkness.”
William Ham, The Culture Bunker
“Singer Souci Broskowitz is so incredibly desirable as she kicks the male sub-species in the balls again and again. She gouges the eyes and spits in the scars of any and all that give her pain. The songs read like diary entries and, for a change, I care.”
Scott Hefflon, Pet UFO
“They say punk is back. Well, I say who are they, and who put them in charge?”
Beren, Rancid at Avalon
Issue 16: Pop Culture Cow Tipping For The Differ-ently Sighted
“Music as a subject areas still lags a distant second behind sex as a topic on the net. The information superhighway is paved with male ejaculate.”
Kerry Joyce, The Sirens of Cyber
“Just take a gander at this randomly-selected sampling of upcoming talk show topix…:
Ricki Lake – “Stop Sleeping With My Roommate’s Corpse!’
Rolanda – ‘Old Lawn Ornaments and the Midget Hermaphrodites that Love Them’
Richard Bey – ‘Your Pet Monkey Gave Me The Clap’
Geraldo – ‘White Supremacist Fashion Show Finals’
Donahue – ‘I Paid a Lot for a Muffler and Forty Six People Died'”
William Ham, Mediacrity
“‘Eve,’ (he said with all the calculated accuracy of what would later be named ’20/20 Hindsight’) ‘we were set up.” … ‘SEE THIS TREE? DON’T LOOK AT IT! THIS TREE, RIGHT HERE! THE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD/EVIL! VERY IMPORTANT! DON’T LOOK AT IT! THE BIG TREE IN THE CLEARING WITH ALL THE HEAVENLY SHAFTS OF LIGHT AND FIERY ARROWS POINTING AT IT! THE TREE WITH THE SNAKE THAT IS, COINCIDENTLY, THE ONLY TALKING ANIMAL IN ALL FUCKING CREATION!!!'”
Ryk McIntyre, The Bed
“Interested in a soaring triumph of the human spirit? Try Readers Digest. Blanketing some poor unsuspecting community with thousands of free ‘zines involves aspects of human nature that engage a considerably lower segment of the brain stem. Portions we share in common with lawyers, amphibians, and cockroaches.”
Mitchell Greentower, How To Start Your Own ‘Zine Part 3
“Have you ever heard ‘vociferous,’ ‘chlorophyll,’ ‘teutonic,’ or ‘teather penumbra’ used by a naked woman in blue body paint while a japanese guitarist in a nurse’s outfit churns out old school rock-the-fuck-out-of-you songs, and other naked women in various colors dance around with giant cardboard flowers and bunny ears?”
Lex Marburger, The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black
“…In which Jim Carroll’s harrowing tale of growing up with a golden arm becomes a palatable consumable ‘cos ‘hey kids! It’s an ‘Alternative Nation!” Right? Right. Now kindly fuck off.”
Chris Adams, Basketball Diaries Soundtrack
“J.G. Thirwell has been putting his fist up music’s ass for more than a decade.”
Karl Geising, Foetus
Issue 17: These Docs Were Made For Scuffin’
“Personally, I don’t think the pit is more violent than ‘before.’ …The PC ’90s have made some so sensitive they’ve forgotten how to be reckless. Total abandon was always the attraction for me. I unleashed pure hatred toward a world that scorned my ideas, refused to accept me on my terms, and repeatedly drew first blood in my attempt at peaceful co-habitation… I think most people get what they want or deserve.”
Scott Hefflon, Peace In The Pit is Bullshit
“Nancy Sinatra has had one hell of a life. First and foremost, she is the daughter of the ubiquitous Frank, bar none the coolest mob-protected, half-soused total bastard who ever flubbed the words to a timeless classic.”
Chris Adams, Nancy Sinatra at Mama Kin
“Braless, in a tight sleeve-less t-shirt, O’Riordan finished off with an Irish step dance, and at last resolved the ancient mystery of why the Gaels of old insisted that the women keep their arms rigid at their sides when bounding rhythmically about the pagan bonfire.”
Kerry Joyce, the Cranberries at The Strand
“The only crowd excitement came when a photographer for this publication made retarded comments to The Smears about revealing their genitalia and got himself kicked out of the show. Later, backstage, The Smears told me they wish he had stayed so they could make fun of him. I told them they would probably get arrested for making fun of retards, unlike in NH where we do it all the time.”
Duke Crevenator, The Smears at Avalon
“Aaahhh… Peter Murphy. Dour explorer of the gauzy netherworlds in the midnights of our minds. He of the impossible cheekbones…”
Chris Adams, Peter Murphy
“‘Bitterness Barbie’ and ‘Jerk of all Trades’ are my pet picks for the ‘I-am-woman-hear-me-squeal-with-laughter-as-I-bust-your-balls’ award.”
Scott Hefflon, Lunachicks
“If I didn’t know Silverchair came from Australia in 1995, I would swear they were Seattle circa 1990. Sounds like Pearl Chains Alice Jam. ”
Jeff Fritz, Silverchair
“A silken sound, enough to wetten thighs and harden crotches, a sound of skin against skin, just-tempered with pain, a pervading helplessness, the body dominating the brain, coercing and seducing the mind into acts of depravity of the darkest aspects of the soul.”
Angela Dauthi, Gitane Demone
“Korn got stuck in my teeth again.”
Cunt Rock Girl, Korn
Issue 18: The Forbidden Dance
“I’ve been called an asshole on a regular basis long before I became an Editor. Being an asshole is a prerequisite to being an Editor. It’s an Editor’s job to organize a bunch of excuse-filled freelancers and try to get a job completed close to deadline. … The asshole/Editor tries to make sure you live up to your commitment and not be such an irresponsible pussy. That’s right, I said pussy. We’re both being orifices, and we’re really not that far from each other, but I’ve got a dirtier job to do. When your well of creative juices runs dry, I get fucked. And I don’t appreciate it..”
Scott Hefflon, Prelude to a Lick
“The failure of Johnny Mnemonic, as disappointingly abject as it is, could easily have been avoided if only studio execs had remember Rule #313 of the Motion Picture Handbook, which states: ‘never cast Keanu Reeves in a movie if he can’t pronounce its title.'”
William Ham, Idle Chatter
“Dole called some of Time Warner’s musical fare ‘a nightmare of depravity;’ and asked, ‘Is this what you intend to do with your careers? You have sold your souls, but must you debase our nation and threaten our children for the sake of corporate profits?’ Very eloquent, Bob. Why didn’t you ever say something like that to Nixon when you had the chance?”
Kerry Joyce, Cheap Speech
“Goth Rock, for the uninitiated, is a fringe lifestyle that seems to revolve around the following:
1. Singing songs about vampires, bats, and witches.
2. Draping yourself in a wardrobe so drab an undertaker looks like Bozo the Clown in comparison.
3. Large investments in the hairspray industry.
4. Laughing at nothing but the futility of it all.
5. Tearfully writing bad poetry in spidery handwriting while surrounded by candles and incense.
6. Listening to bands with fun-lovin’ nameslike ‘Bone Orchard’ and ‘Christian Death.’
7. Talking a lot about weird ritual sex while steadfastly concealing your virginity.”
Chris Adams, Bedazzled Showcase
“The music of Medicine defines the word ‘ethereal.’ There is nothing solid for the listener to sink his or her teeth into, only intricate ghostlike fibers of noise that always remain just out of reach. Perhaps it’s this quality that makes them so attractive.”
Josh Brown, Medicine
“Oh, honey, look at the punks! Aren’t they cute?”
Scott Hefflon, MxPx
“….It’s better than drinking Captain Morgan’s from someone else’s mouth.”
Lex Marburger, Hissanol
“The crowd was ‘alternative,’ if sloppy is a fashion statement.”
Clarendon Lavorich, Squirrel Nut Zippers
“How poetic. How punk rock. Yup, a great show that proved punk PC is BS and rude rules. And fuck you.”
Chaz Thorndike, Red Aunts at The Middle East Cafe
“…Don’t even go there. Or T-h-e-a, if you’re from Cranston, RI (Rhode Island).
What did Cranston ever do to you?
I went to the doctor today and he told me I had a nasty Cranston. Talk to the hand. That’s h-e-e-e-n-d. It might be four Es. I’m not sure, I’m a plumber.
I’m going to ask a pertinent question. Just to juxtapose all…
Hey, don’t bring Madonna into this. Sorry, I was distracted by Montel. That’s with one L. What was the question? I just sat on the puppy.
Anything else you want to talk about?
Besides nuclear proliferation?
What about goat cheese?
Don’t even go there…”
Scott Hefflon, Interview with Mike Stone of Klover
Issue 19: The Incline of Western Civilization
“Sure, America is multi-cultural too. But [unlike Yugoslavia] only one culture has mortars and field artillery – the Western Civilization of Lincoln, Jefferson, Brigham Young, the 82nd Airborne, the 12th Precinct, and the Michigan Militia.”
Kerry Joyce, A Spectator’s Guide ToWorld War I Part II
“During the school year, Gloria goes to Harvard University. She gets good grades, plays classical piano, and involves herself in a long list of clubs and sports. She has no reason to be angry at the world, or desperate for money. Her parents pay her full tuition and provide her with an allowance. But somehow she got involved in exchanging sex for money.”
Patrick Timony, Prostitute
“If I’m coming off uncharacteristically upbeat this month, it’s not just because they’ve fine-tuned my regular daily dosage. It just so happens that this here verbal micturation marks the one-year anniversary of this wee little column. … The copy editors went halfsies on something for me called a ‘cock ring.’ I must say, I had a devil of a time getting on my pet bantam, Laertes, but now that I have, he doesn’t go anywhere without it. Has a hard time crowing, but that cuts down on the neighbors’ complaints, so thanks a bunch.”
William Ham, The Culture Bunker
“I like to think of this album as the Devil in Miss Jones of rock.”
Joshua Brown, Hot Damn!
“Dave Thomas is a formidable character, not only in girth but in manic ferocity while screaming disjointed lyrics in a squealing junior-got-too-much-sugar-and-now-he’s-attacking-the-kitty kind of voice.”
Lex Marburger, Pere Ubu
“Whoooaaahhh!!”
Tim Creter, Death… Is just the Beginning
“Shit sandwich.”
Mr. Alturtletive, The Weaklings
“I pretty much hate comparisons (Rick Springfield meets the Go Gos meets an unopened can of tuna meets your sphincter)…”
Jeb Taylor, The Brian Stephens Band
