POPsmear

#8 $3 US/$20 Yer Mama (648 Broadway #909 New York, NY 10012)
by Scott Hefflon

Even regular readers of POPsmear had better hang onto something; James & Petey More are back, and even more pissed off than usual. Luckily, they reprint every piece of email they get, whether it’s at all interesting or not, so you really get a feel for how many complete losers there really are in this world. And they all seem to write to POPsmear. The welcoming page, the almost mandatory I’m-an-editor-dammit-and-I-want-my-say, warns of the attitude contained in the following pages, but we’ve all heard that one before. (Attitude is a commodity. No-talent dipshits with a sharp tongue and/or a lotta pens does not an underground writer make. You’re a hack with a thesaurus.) Ahem, but POPsmear really had some serious problems last month. Seems their re-printing of celebrity home phone numbers got them many new pen-pals. Lawyers and other mealy-mouthed threat-cloakers sent certified letters to POPsmear, and they’re reproduced in the issue. Also included are reprints of tons of the weird, and usually useless, info you’ll find if you have no life and surf the net all the time. They’re also in trouble for that. Technology just can’t compensate for people being such assholes. I tell ya, James and the gang have balls of steel to put out a ‘zine of gossip, nasty letters, bizarre facts, wacky perspectives, and other shit you don’t really need to know, but it sure makes life less mundane. In it’s own twisted way, POPsmear provides (usually) intelligent insight into the rumblings of pop culture’s underbelly.