Five Year Anniversary Excerpts – Issue 29 – Column

Issue 29:

A Sucker Is Born Every Minute

Where the hell’d the summer go? I guess it’s time to “buckle down,” “hit the books,” and really “keep your nose to the grindstone.” Oh, such violence is inherent in clichés. (And not just ’cause people beat the piss out of you every time you use one of the fuckers.)
Scott Hefflon, Prelude to a Lick

(SpongeHead) reminds me of an old (any old) McGyver episode where he saves the day by building an essential machine out of a tin can, two hair curlers, a copy of “A Boy’s Guide to Hygiene,” a rubber band, and a brick.
Ryk McIntyre, SpongeHead

(I Hope It Lands) is the soundtrack for an episode of CHiPs translated at high speed into an extraterrestrial language of bizarre noises that are at once abrasive to the ear and quite inspirational to laboratory rats.
Joshua Brown, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282

It’s enough to make a True Punk blush in vicarious shame until his face matches the color of his mohawk. Even as Mrs. Rainey and I pulled in to Great Woods’ parking lot, we were still chuckling over what were surely the dribbles of incongruity presaging the riptide of absurdity that would be that evening. …I began thinking the headline… “What If They Gave A White Riot But Nobody Came?” but decided to save it for Combat Schlock: The Clash Reunion Tour and Jowly Revolutionary Sideshow next year (mark my words, it’s coming).
Nik Rainey, Sex Pistols at Great Woods

Many years ago, a Chicagoan named Al Jourgensen with no discernible talent except for a keen sense of how to get rich by ripping off Big Black, began layering distorted guitars over a synth-drum beat and the rest, as they say, is Trent Reznor.
Jon Sarre, Evil Mothers

I imagine store copies of Suckerpunch’s self-titled debut coming to life at night and beating up the Huey Lewis section for fun.
Austin Nash, Suckerpunch

Okay, what I’m talking about here is Spontaneous Human Combustion; death by internal time bomb… Though this highly inventive way to go is so rare and unpredictable, due to the lack of volunteers, it should be studied… There is, however, one such group of renowned experts (consisting primarily of me) currently seeking volunteers to either donate large sums of money or to sit there and explode while I take notes. This may offer a possible explanation into the disappearances of such notable figures as Amelia Earhart, Jimmy Hoffa, the Lindbergh baby, the entire population of Guam (always wondered why they never wrote back), and the other guy from Hall and Oates.
Citizen John, Spontaneous Human Combustion

…Modern Cinematic Updates of Shakespeare. …I thought of doing Richard III but I never saw the first two and besides, people with bad posture bug me. …I finally settled on River’s Edge. …The classic themes are there: death, duplicity, betrayal. …The brother-against-brother subplot smacks of that Shakespeare play with the two brothers in it. The murdered girl is as resonant a portrait of the fragility of femineity as Ophelia, except she didn’t drown and Ophelia didn’t spend all of Hamlet lying there naked… And is there a more poignant vision of star-crossed love then the romance between Dennis Hopper’s Feck and his inflatable doll, Ellie? Well, yes, of course there is, but that’s beside the point. It hardly matters, particularly since River’s Edge has the tug of the greatest Elizabethan tragedy. And even if it doesn’t, who cares?
William Ham, River’s Edge

Observe the complete rundown of the work required to complete an average Culture Bunker:
Day 3. Awoke at 5:15 pm. Began work on column. Carved two support beams before remembering that I wasn’t a carpenter. Resolved to give sander, plane, saws, and 101 Ways To Reattach A Finger Joint to the underprivileged and begin writing tomorrow.
Day 4. Awoke at 88:88. Discovered that the power had gone out
during the night. Decided it was a bad omen and resolved not to write that day…
Day 5. …Sat at table, alternately brooding creatively and moping imaginatively. Roused from artistic depression by frantic phone call. Jumped up, bolted from house.
Later That Day. Returned to house. Put on pants. Left again.
Day 7. Other obligations call.
Days 8-12. Slept.
Day 13. …Sat at my table and ruminated. Suddenly had revelation. Consulted dictionary, discovered that “ruminate” does not mean “to pour overproof rum all over one’s naked body and squeal like a barnyard animal.” Realized why I keep getting banished from the library. …Resolved not to rest until I figured out title.
Day 14. No entry.
Day 15. No entry.
Day 16. Good God! Where did my elbows go?
Day 17. Did it. …May I say it is my masterpiece. I call it “The Culture Bunker.”
William Ham, The Culture Bunker

Boston is a cultural mecca to the country and the world. Some of the most renowned rock bands in history had their start here. Thousands of college students flock to the thriving nightclubs every weekend. But behind the pierced pubic areas, the needle point, billboarded buttocks, the Count Chocula face paint, and the vague stench of vomit, all is not sweetness and light. Barely audible under the googol-watt Marshall Amps can be heard a thousand hearts crying out in disillusionment and despair. You have to be a drug-sniffing dog or a ‘zine publisher with a heart of gold, like me, to hear it. My name’s Ryeday, I carry a pen.
Kerry Joyce, True Stories of the Scene Patrol Starring Sgt. Joe Ryeday