2015. Krylon Underground 1984-1992

2015. Krylon Underground 1984-1992

review of

Saint Bob German's Krylon Underground

- 1984-1992 - Nine Years in Zine Culture

by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - November 23 - December 26, 2015

full review: "Krylon Underscrutiny": https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/411386-krylon-underscrutiny

truncated review: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25154043-krylon-underground-1984-1992

Over the last 37 yrs, since August of 1978, I've been published in the following 117 (maga)zines:

L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E (NYC, 1978)

Mike Film Form Letter (Baltimore, 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1990, 1995)

Hard Crabs (Baltimore, 1979)

RAWZ (London, 1979)

Suggestion Box Residue (Baltimore, 1979, 2011)

dop e (BalTimOre, 1980)

DDC#040.002 (BalTimOre, 1981, 1982, 1985)

DOC(K)S (Ventabren, 1981)

HOMEX (BalTimOre, 1982)

End Paper (Toronto, 1982)

umbrella (Glendale, 1982)

Tarantula Hill Felark Sun = Times Bulletin Newsletter (San Antonio, 1982)

A HUNDRED POSTERS (NYC, 1983, 2010)

The Second Transform Book (Brøndby Strand, 1983)

the Stark Fist of Removal (Dallas, 1983, 1984)

Thermos (Norfolk, 1983)

False Positive (San Francisco, 1983)

mambo press update (San Antonio, 1983)

Bambù (Pescara, 1983)

Data File (Los Angeles, 1983)

NEO-NOOZE (Tepoztlan, 1983)

High Performance (Los Angeles, 1983)

FOMT QT BULLETIN (Larne, 1984)

A Trip to Akademgorod (Forte dei Marmi, 1984)

Factsheet Five (Medford, 1984)

OP (Olympia, 1984)

LEVEL (Indianapolis, 1984)

Neoist Prototype Ark Two (Paris, 1984)

SMILE (London, 1985, 1989)

SMILE (Montréal, 1985)

SMILE (Minden, 1985)

Total (Odzaci, 1985)

SECOND MANIFESTo (Odzaci, 1985)

Lost and Found Times (Columbus, 1985)

Hagaki Magazine (Inomiya City, 1985)

Transparent SMILE (BalTimOre, 1985)

Popular Reality (Ann Arbor, 1985, 1986, 1987, 2002)

LISME (Amsterdam, 1985)

EKSTRAKTION (Tournay, 1985)

Hare/Hunter/Field (Fremont, 1985)

Surreal Estates (Knoxville, 1986)

Work in Progress (Zurich, 1986)

Deaf Education SMILE: (BalTimOre, 1986)

Light Times (Los Angeles, 1987)

A. C. Gazette (Champaign, 1987)

Phosphorusflourish (Champaign, 1987)

PELO (Ponte Nossa, 1987)

KAOS (London, 1987)

Shattered Wig Review (BalTimOre, 1987, 1988, 2013)

PhotoStatic (Iowa City, 1988)

Box of Water (San Francisco, 1988)

(S)CRAP (Phoenix, 1988)

Cinematograph (San Francisco, 1988)

Perpetual Motion (NYC, 1988)

SMILE (Dundee, 1988)

CoBalt Newsletter (BalTimOre, 1988, 1989)

Variant (Dundee, 1989)

SOUS LE MANTEAU (Montréal, 1989)

ottotole (San Francisco, 1989)

OVO (Knoxville/Portland (OR), 1989, 1991, 2012, 2014)

The Monthly Me@nder (Rensselaer, 1990)

Gajoob (Salt Lake City, 1990, 1991)

The Single Eye (Montréal, 1990)

The international NEOIST SLIME (Amsterdam, 1990)

Experimental Musical Instruments (Nicasio, 1990, 1996, 1997)

Retrofuturism (Iowa City, 1990, 1991)

N D (Austin, 1990)

MadWoman (Chicago, 1990)

Weiver Review (Portland (ME), 1990)

Krylon Underground (Bethesda, 1990)

Reality Sandwich (BalTimOre, 1990, 1991)

Leisure (Cardiff, 1990)

Black Eye (NYC, 1991)

H23 (Athens (OH), 1991)

Wray (Cleveland, 1992)

The Subtle Journal of Raw Coinage (Schenectady, 1992)

Painted Bride Quarterly (Philadelphia, 1992)

egomania (Derbyshire, 1992)

VITAL (Netherlands, 1993)

COPY-LEFT (Zürich, 1993)

Fatuous Times (London, 1994)

MUSICWORKS (Toronto, 1995, 1996)

Link (BalTimOre, 1997)

Tensetendoned (Preston Park, 1997)

Awake! (Toronto, 1998)

Guinea Pig Zero (Philadelphia, 1998)

Street Rat (Pittsburgh, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004)

Kapot (Utrecht, 1999)

MandRagora (Pittsburgh, 1999)

Parasol Post (Leicester, 2000)

Anarchy - A Journal of Desire Armed (Columbia, 2000)

Super Eight - Newsletter of the Melbourne Super 8 Film Group Inc (Melbourne (AUS), 2000)

Green Anarchist (London, 2000)

No Frills (Sydney, 2000)

URBANIA (Sao Paulo, 2001)

Little Rock Free Press (Little Rock, 2001)

Noisegate (London, 2002)

Strike (Pittsburgh, 2002)

POSTED (internet, 2003)

Art World (China, 2003)

Post Moderne Otter (Pittsburgh, 2004)

Encylopaedia Destructica - Bumba IV (Pittsburgh, 2007)

OTHERZINE (San Francisco, 2009, 2010)

PARAPHILIA (internet, 2009)

Rampike (Windsor, 2010, 2012, 2014)

Dream-Zine: The Collaboration! (internet, 2010)

Annandale Dream Gazette (internet, 2010, 2011, 2013)

The OPEN SPACE magazine (Red Hook, 2011, 2014)

OUTPOST JOURNAL (Providence, 2011)

Tip of the Knife (internet, 2012)

Sibila (NYC/Brazil/internet, 2012)

Otoliths (Rockhampton/internet, 2012)

HTMLGIANT (internet, 2013)

INCITE Journal of Experimental Media (Pittsburgh, 2013)

And/Or (Charleston, 2014)

APT. E14 (London/internet, 2014)

ACRES (BalTimOre, 2015)

& that, dear reader, is where I adamantly maintain culture is at. It's NOT in the homogenizing, brain-washing mass media; it's in the smaller (often more internationalist - as I hope the above list hints at) publications where the liveliest free-thinking minds congregate. [For a more complete & detailed list of my publications go here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/Bibliography.html ]

Krylon Underground wasn't the 1st (maga)zine I was ever in, it wasn't the 1st punk zine I was published in (A. C. Gazette probably has that distinction), it wasn't the 1st anarchist (maga)zine I was published in (my own DDC#040.002 or Mike Gunderloy's Factsheet Five or Crowbar's Popular Reality or Gunderloy's The Monthly Me@nder might be able to claim that distinction depending upon how one defines "anarchist (maga)zine"), but it IS the 1st of all of those to have almost all of its issues reprinted in bk form & that's very, VERY important.

I honestly wish that every (maga)zine listed above (w/ one exception possibly) were reprinted in bk form so that these containers of culture in its mostly uncensored & unco-opted VITALITY cd be given greater longevity.

But let's begin at a beginning shall we?

"In some cases no attribution is given to individual pieces. This is for various reasons. Some pieces arrived with no attribution. Some authors chose to publish with no attribution. Some attribution was lost during the editing process. Sometimes an author might later decide he or she no longer recognizes himself or herself in the piece, and later removes attribution.

"In any of these cases, it may be easier for the reader to simply consider the piece attributable to Karen Eliot. If you are unfamiliar with Karen Eliot, please consult Wikipedia, or some other source which is equally all-knowing and infallible." - p 2

"Karen Eliot" is one of several names used collectively & somewhat commonly at the time of "Krylon Underground"'s existence. German's suggestion is akin to saying 'Let those who are anonymous be collectively perceived under the umbrella of Anonymous.' He cd've similarly suggested that they be thought of as Alan Smithee, David A. Bannister, Monty Cantsin, etc. I think that his promotion of Wikipedia as "equally all-knowing and infallible" is intended to be tongue-in-cheek. Wikipedia is most definitely NOT "all-knowing and infallible" when it comes to subjects like neoism - wch is what the Karen Eliot identity is usually associated w/.

German introduces the early days of Krylon Underground (1984) thusly:

"These were the first, a high school experiment for a kid who had trouble communicating verbally, but who excelled at reading and writing. An audience of, oh, I don't know, let's just say more than a few, more than several, but no more than a five mile radius from the high school. The audience represented my community, my circle of friends, peers, and acquaintances; the people I knew &/or wanted to know better. This was my reaching out."

[..]

"They're here so that you can see what those early issues looked like, but reduced in size so that (a) they won't waste valuable pages, and (b) nobody has to be forced to read what's in them." - p 5

Now, I'm one of those often-thorough people. I wd've happily read all the juvenilia if only to observe the growth of the editor's mind. Alas, this compilation is missing issues # 1 & 2. Despite the reduced size, I actually read this tiny print using a magnifying glass. German was immediately entrepreneurial: "NEW SERVICE: For a mere $25/YEAR, I will assign you a mailbox here at the club, so you can order items and publications without your parents finding them, and pick them up at your own convenience." (p 8, issue Vol I, No. 6, December 1984) That's the spirit!

In the same issue there's an "ASK HENRY" feature that elicited this question: "Dear henry, Did Adam have a belly button? If so, that means God had one too, since Adam was modeled after God. Think about it. - Sean" (p 8) That might be a fun trick question to ask the next Christinane zombie you get stuck conversing w/.

In German's intro to January 1985 he writes: "One could argue that the 1984-1985 school year, which was supposed to be my senior year" (p 9) - so he was a senior in high school when he was putting out Krylon Underground. That's pretty precocious but also an indicator of how widespread DIY media was becoming w/ the proliferation of photocopiers that wd've been close to nonexistent a mere decade before. The SciFi world had had fanzines for something like 35 yrs or more prior to this but they wd've been printed on mimeograph machines, a somewhat more labor-intensive technology.

Reading this Krylon Underground bk resonates deeply w/ me even tho I'm about 14 yrs older than German &, therefore, leaving behind things he was entering, b/c there's still a subcultural overlap & much of what Krylon Underground represents is very familiar to me. Take, eg, this: "The plan was to meet 666 days after at the site of the Marble Bar in Baltimore" (p 14). The Marble Bar was one of my main stomping grounds from, maybe, 1979ish to 1985ish. It was, for me, Baltimore's most important punk club, its pioneering punk club - kindof B-More's CBGB or some such. I spent a considerable amt of time there & was thrown out at least once - not necessarily an easy thing to do considering how 'permissive' & tolerant the place was. When Roger, the coowner, died from a cocaine-induced heart attack in 1984, things just weren't the same anymore.

By October of 1985 German had "transferred to a new school (we had moved)" (p 17) thusly fleshing out the above-quoted "supposed to be my senior year". I don't know whether he 'had to' repeat a yr &, if so, why, but I deduce that it's not indicative of a lack of intelligence on his part. More likely, he didn't fit in & didn't want to fit in. I can relate. I graduated from high school w/ close to the lowest possible passing grade & this can easily be explained by the utter boredom I experienced in response to the low level of intellectual stimulus that the schools I attended offered.

By Vol 3, No 1 (October, 1985) there were "Crassifieds" advertising anarchist punk band records by the likes of Black Flag & the Dead Kennedys (p 20). I was already bored by punk by then but at least the anarchist 'promise' that may've started w/ the Sex Pistols had been fleshed out a bit by the mid-'80s. From my POV, most of the punk bands in B-More in the early yrs lacked any political analysis & were more self-absorbed in a somewhat nihilistic & occasionally borderline right-wing drug-abusing mania. As such, I was glad to see more punk bands taking anarchist stances even if I found the music unimaginative & conformist.

There was more political activism in those days centered against nuclear power & weaponry than there seems to be now. Post the WWII atomic bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki there'd been a pretty strong thread in SF warning people of the apocalyptic dangers of such warfare. Krylon Underground was in the thick of it:

"DON'T ASK WHAT NUCLEAR WAR CAN DO TO YOU, ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO TO STOP NUCLEAR WAR. HERE ARE A FEW SUGGESTIONS:

"1) WORK TO GET THE LAND BACK FROM THE MILITARY.

2) WORK FOR A FAIR BUDGET, TRANSFERRING MILITARY SPENDING TO SOCIAL SPENDING. WE WANT JOBS, NOT BOMBS, AND JOBS FOR PEACE, NOT WAR.

3) DEMILITARIZE YOUR LOCAL COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY AND/OR YOUR COMMUNITY, TOWN OR CITY.

4) RESIST THE POVERTY DRAFT. FIND WORK ALTERNATIVES FOR POOR PEOPLE AND PEOPLE OF COLOR." - p 22

When I read something or when I witness a movie I often wonder whether some references are as obvious to other people as they are to me. EG: How many readers realize that "DON'T ASK WHAT NUCLEAR WAR CAN DO TO YOU, ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO TO STOP NUCLEAR WAR" is a take-off of the famous inaugural JFK speech?: "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Kennedy's intention being, of course, to tell the American public that we must be less selfish & work together for the good of the nation - a flaw in this being that what's 'good for the nation' may really be something that's propagandized as such by a plutocracy that disguises its self-serving motives. I find this anti-nuke plea to be much more intelligently productive. Has the general American public come to accept & be in denial that this country is constantly at war?! Sometimes it seems so. Will I ever live to see a demilitarization?! I hope so but I'm not holding my breath, I'm not even holding someone else's breath. As long as we have religion & capitalism (not to mention yr basic biological aggro) we're going to have war & more war.

Another thing that was topical at the time were the "Faces of Death" video compilations of footage of executions & the like. I cd never bring myself to check them out but they were certainly popular w/ at least a few friends of mine. For me, they were too much like snuff films, a genre that I prefer to not encourage.

"I also just saw Faces of Death. Seeing that movie reinforced my hate for war and fights. It also helped me understand vegetarians. It mentioned that Hiler caused the death of SIX MILLION Jews. Call me unimaginative, but I can't picture six million of anything. I never will understand how the people let that happen, and I hope it never happens again, but doesn't everybody?" - p 28

I can understand it all too well but then I have a pessimistic view of humanity. I strongly suggest reading Lewis Yablonsky's bk entitled Robopaths (you can read my review of that here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3132178-robopaths ) if you want a clear view on the social dynamics of mass destructive behavior. As for "everybody" hoping "it never happens again"?! We shd be so lucky.

By Vol V, No 1 (August, 1986) is when Krylon starts to get good for me. There's a bit more imagination: "Welcome to the Issue issue, the "Oh, how much I miss you" issue, the "Please don't make me kiss you" issue, the "Out of toilet tissue" issue..." (p 38) The Church of the SubGenius makes an appearance w/ its widespread "What the HELL do you thunk you're doing?" tract & there's more anti-nuclear concern:

"WHAT WE NEED TO DO TO INSURE NO NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST

""No one makes a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do little." (Edmund Burke)

President Reagan relishes his role as number-one salesman for nuclear power and for the U.S. high-tech weapons industry. The U.S. Congress backs him in that role, but not unanimously. Public write-ins and call-ins to the U.S. Congress were nine-to-one AGAINST FUNDING the MX missile in 1985, but Congress voted to fund the MX anyway!

"In another case, write-ins and call-ins have been more than 100-to-one against a weapons program, but Congress voted to fund it anyway! So we have some clear evidence that democracy doesn't work at all when it comes to funding big weapons programs."

[..]

"Well, the U.S. weapons industry has become one of the biggest (if not the biggest) industry the world has ever known. That gives them unbelievable power to influence politicians and how they vote when the weapons funding bills come to a vote in Congress. We all know that "money talks."" - p 40

Keep in mind that this was back in the day when tracts like this were still being typed on typewriters. Computer layouts wd've been rare-to-nonexistent. As such, what might seem confusingly unsexy to some people born into the computer age was pretty-damn convincing just for its clean clarity - despite minor grammatical errors like "industry" instead of 'industries'. As for the "weapons industry": it still thrives off of greedy exploitation & fear-mongering, sadly. There's always an 'other' to use as a boogeyman. It's no longer the Red Menace or even the Yellow Peril, it's ISIS or whatnot. If ISIS isn't already a government conspiracy for keeping fear alive in the interests of homogenization & lack of critical thinking it certainly serves that purpose 'admirably'.

In Vol 5 No 3 (December, 1986 / January, 1987) there's a poem that addresses the destruction of positive childhood energy thru suppression of even the slightest abnormalities by school:

"The teacher came and smiled at him.

"What's this?" she said, "Why don't you draw

something like Ken's drawing?"

"Isn't that beautiful?"

After that his mother bought him a tie.

And he always drew airplanes and rocketships like everyone else

And he threw the old picture away.

And when he lay out alone looking at the sky,

It was big an blue and all of everything.

But he wasn't anymore." - p 54

Then there's "EPISODE 1 OF THE GREEN THING SERIAL" by Angler Smith:

"My Sister's Brother's Uncle was sitting in his red pickup outside the 7-eleven, reading Mercenary and Girlie Review, waiting for his friends and their list of wisecracks about whatever ethnic group happened to be behind the counter that night. Just minding his own business, when out of the blue, he was attacked. It was green. It didn't like it (it had been provoked by "It's Not Easy Being Green;" after all music does have the incredible power to call people to action and "It's Not Easy Being Green["] is probably the greatest protest song ever sung by a frog; and this is why we must keep this protest filth from our kids but of course that's another story that doesn't make much sense right now;) and it had decided to come out of its hole tonight to take out its frustration on the first hick it could find

""What the tarnation..." my Sister's Brother's Uncle exclaimed as the green thing's claws ripped off his cheek and real blood fell upon the magazine's pictured blood." - p 56

"My Sister's Brother's Uncle" =, of course, the narrator's uncle. Hence the description is 'unnecessarily complicated' for humor's sake. Even as a non-tv-watcher I figured out that the song is sung by Kermit the Frog on Sesame Street. Funny, you don't look green. Maybe it's my sister's aunt's nephew's B&W tv.

Heck'a'goshen, I even like Romain Chote's poetry a little:

"Stuffed in a paper

bag, I gnaw away at the paper

like a grapefruit bouncing

from side to side, trying to

get out. I reach into my pocket

and pull out a lighter and torch the bag

the bag engulfs in flame and I follow." - p 82

It's been the 'nature of the beast' that much photocopying leaves alot to be desired in readability, esp when the font size is minute. P 91's "Rainbow information / focalizer network" is a case in point. It has a list of contact names & addresses where the toner is so blurred/blown-out that it's close to impossible to get anything useful out of it. Maybe the original was better. This is surrounded by various definitions: canvas, cannabis, hemp, politic, government, lie, bullshit, smegma, vigilance, etc.. One might say that those word choices express a theme, eh?

I reckon ya cd say that Krylon Underground 'had it all' - in this case 'all' includes prisoner support. I've had all too many friends go to jail & prison & I can't say that many (or any) of them 'deserved it' or that it did them any good. It helped keep the alcoholics sober for a while but I think there might be a better way, eh?!:

"We've gotten a few letters in response to our various 'outreach' advertisements. Three in particular deserve your attention. They're from inmates at the Guilford County Jail, in Greensboro, North Carolina. A member was arrested there in March, in the parking lot of the stadium there. Coincidentally, the Grateful Dead happened to be in town. The arrest happened during a show of force by the Greensboro police. Apparently, they don't like the idea of people selling LSD to each other. I guess it infringes on the local crack trade. He's still there as of June 10." - p 96

Now for those of you who think that law enforcement is all it's 'cracked up' to be, consider this:

"Prelude to November 3

"One of the activities that was chosen to assist in both community organizing and anti-racism was a "Death to the Klan" parade and rally in Greensboro.

"The march and rally were planned and duly permitted with the Greensboro Police. The rally was scheduled for the Morningside Heights housing project, one of the neighborhoods in Greensboro with an active community organization.

"Two days prior to the march, which had been publicized as much as possible, of course, one of the Klan members went to the police station to obtain the map of the march and the rally.

"November 3

"While the march was in progress, the Klan/Nazis, with the leadership of Edward Dawson, loaded several car trunks with firearms and headed for the rally site in a caravan of nine cars. As they neared the rally site, a Greensboro Police cruiser became the tenth car in the motorcade. Meanwhile, Greensboro Police dispatcher(s) ordered the other police assigned to the rally to go on a break.

"When the Klan/Nazis arrived, they pulled up to the curb in a group, alighted from the cars, calmly went to the trunks, removed their weapons, and began firing into the crowd of demonstrators. No police intervention was forthcoming. Contrary to the popular view of the incident, this was not a shootout: only one demonstrator had a firearm (a pistol), and only one round was fired from it, hitting no one. Four demonstrators died at the scene, including one who was shot between the eyes as she looked out from cover; several were wounded, including one who died three days later, and one who is paraplegic to this day. Since all of this was recorded on video tape by a local news camera operator, there's not much doubt about who did what to whom, when.

"Following the massacre (which seems an appropriate description) the Klan/Nazis got back in their cars and sped away. There was no police intervention." - http://www.ibiblio.org/prism/jan98/chron.html

Yep, a mere 10 yrs after the Greensboro cops allowed the KKK to openly murder ant-racists they're now enforcing the law against users of consciousness-expansion drugs. The guy arrested has been in jail for 3 mnths as of his being mentioned in the article - more time than the KKK murderers ever did even though their identities were known & the crime was videotaped.

By the time of this 1989 issue, the Krylon Underground had clarified its philosophy: "WHAT THE KRYLON UNDERGROUND STANDS FOR: Mostly for the truth." (p 96) "Whatever role you decide to play in life, be aware of it. Never play dumb. Life isn't something you sit back and watch." (p 99) At least not if you want to be something other than a couch potato.

By the by, "Krylon" is a brand of spray paint so I've always interpreted the name of the zine as identifying w/ graffiti. For me, graffiti, at its best, is an uncensored public expression. I'm all for it when it's not on people's homes. Krylon Underground is openly anti-censorship. I'm all for it. It does get complicated tho, doesn't it?! What if someone contributes something to yr zine as a challenge to yr support of free speech, a hate tract, eg, something racist or sexist or homophobic that you really don't want to support? If Krylon Underground ever had to deal w/ this dilemma I detect no traces of it.

There're even "INDOOR MARIJUANA GROWING TIPS" (p 102). Heck'o'goshen, even I usta grow pot openly on a window ledge in 1973 (I stopped smoking in 1988). Remember when you cd get a 10 yr sentence for possession? Esp if you were somehow a political target? Remember John Sinclair & Tim Leary? Now there are what? 23 states where medical marijuana is legal? Personally, I don't even think pot smoking's a particularly good idea but putting people in jail for it is an even worse one. Then again, what are police going to do if pot's legal in all 50 states? They sure as shit aren't going to be bothering their good ole boy Klan buddies now are they?

By this 1989 Krylon Underground issue & the one following it in 1990, I finally find myself liking the issues, rather than just identifying w/ their politics. There's more substance. I enjoyed "G. Reaper's Fractured Horoscopes:"

"Aquarius: January 21 - February 19. You lie a great deal. On the other hand, you are inclined to be careless and impractical, causing you to make the same mistakes repeatedly. Everyone thinks you are stupid.

"Pisces: February 20 - March 20. You have a vivid imagination and often think you are being followed by the CIA and the FBI. You have minor influence over your associates and people resent you for flaunting your power. You lack confidence and are generally a coward. Pisces people screw small animals." - p 124

From the early days, Krylon Underground tried to sell stuff. This included a "Krylon Insanity 90 min audio cassette C-2 $10.00" (p 128). This kindof amazes me. By my standards, as a person who's been 'selling' tapes since 1980, $10 was a bit pricey in 1990. Did they sell any? I wonder.

By July, 1990, there's a quote purported to be by one Thomas Jefferson. Was he on that Jeffersons tv show?: "The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own Government." (p 138) The implication being, I suppose, that when the people are not "well informed", wch I'd say is usually, then whoever is shd be their governors. What I'd like to know is: who sets the standards as to what "well informed" is? & who monitors its degrees? SHEESH, these tv comedies.

There's even a section entitled "Where to now? (some thoughts about Goals)" that might've been lifted from some fairly sensible social worker / psychologist source: "A goal is simply a tool for navigation. It is useful as a landmark whenever you need to take your bearings, and to the degree that you allow yourself to have a vivid sense of where you want to go." (p 148) I found this whole thing 'worth' quoted but I'm not going to. "Philosophy" might be another word that cd be substituted for "Goal". Then again, YOU might prefer substituting "Horsefeathers" you Marxist you.

False accusations are great for bringing out the psycho in sensitive types: "I once was accused of being high. / I told them I wasn't and I don't lie. / Mr. Durand was sure that I was. / But I don't care what he does. / They took my cigarette and dismembered it. / All it did was make me mad as shit. / They made me take off my shoes. / And then I was singing the blues. / Then they made me take off my coat. / All it did was make me want to take a knife to their throat." (p 149) I wonder what kind of music they had playing while (s?)he stripped?

Something like that happened to me in Junior High School. I was outside during lunch break & someone set off a firecracker. It wasn't me. One of my 'teachers' hauled me inside as the suspect. My friend Mike followed to defend me. Go Mike. I forgot that until right now. The charges were dropped but I had to drag a cross while naked for one whole fucking year. Uh, just kidding.

Wch leads us to a type of direct action that I don't hear much about these days: running up 800 number bills to try to financially damage companies who do nasty things: "LABORATORY ANIMAL DEALERS: 800-numbers cost you nothing; the owner of the line is charged for the call. Widespread abuse of these lines will cost dealers time and money. Spread them 'round!" (p 150) I eat meat. You cd say I 'eat (m)eat' if you wanted to make something resembling a pun. HOWEVER, I do not support torturing animals (including humans) for any reason - including as research for health care. No thanks. Then again, it's probably a solid argument to say that simply by virtue of being a meat eater I'm supporting the torture of animals - given the slaughterhouse industry's MO. SO, to heck w/ me.

Here's an example of a boycott called for: "JAPANESE, NORWEGIAN & SOVIET FISH PRODUCTS / Boycott Called by: U.S. Humane Society / These nations continue whaling in violation of the International Whaling Commission ban on all commercial whaling which went into effect on Jan. 1, 1986" (p 152) While I'm all in favor of not hunting whales I do have to wonder whether this "International" ban included agreement from representatives of the countries who ignored it. I also have to wonder how heavily their economy depends on such whaling. It's all well & good to announce such a ban but there are some repercussions that also have to be addressed. I don't hear much about boycotts anymore. I always liked them as pacifist resistance but I also always wondered how effective they were.

2 yrs later there's an article called "How to Boycott Your Face Off:". That begins w/: "So many boycotts going on, it's difficult to keep track of them all. Also, just because they're listed here doesn't mean there's any "requirement" to boycott these companies. Hell, if it were up to me, I'd call for a boycott of the U.S. Postal Service. They've been fucking me over for years! Why do they keep raising their fees? My box fee skyrocketed with the last postage increase, and is my service any better? Not really." (p 260)

The October, 1990 issue was the one I contributed to as "Moms" Brutus (an oblique take-off of comedian "Moms" Mabley) w/ my collaboration w/ David "Footlong" Franks entitled "Hairballs, Wigs & Weaves for Skinheads", our parody tract mocking the white supremacist skinhead movement that was getting started in BalTimOre around this time (as if BalTimOre didn't have enuf fucking problems). To see the actual pamphlet, go here: https://www.facebook.com/235282219826812/photos/a.874302822591412.1073741826.235282219826812/882020471819647/?type=1&theater . To see some paltry footage of the event that the pamphlet was made for go here: https://youtu.be/b08MlvL-60k .

To my surprise, my ex-girlfriend Jake "T" Unclean's "Girls Shave in Solidarity with the Prematurely Bald" tract is also in this issue. That was created as a take-off of Footlong's & my "Hairballs.." bklt.

In the beginning of this issue, German gives a shout-out to a zine that almost every underground publisher in the us of @ had benefited from as a networking tool: "I've got to make a special note of thanks to Factsheet Five, a sourcebook for the truly insane, whose reviews of KRYLON have seriously increased the volume of mail we get." (p 158)

German was aware of restrictions on sending publications to prisoners wch probably means he at least intended to do so: "SUMMARY: In this document, the Bureau of Prisons is amending" [..] "543.11(d) on its final rule on Inmate Legal Activities to be consistent with the Bureau's existing rule on Incoming Publications. The amendment substitutes the phrase "newspaper clippings" for "newspapers" in the example of softcover materials an inmate may receive from any source." (p 160) If you're in the Pittsburgh area & are interested in helping send bks to prisoners you might want to check out: http://www.bookempgh.org/ . A short movie about the early days of Book 'Em is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U98LDXOLf2A .

Charlie Manson, certainly a well-known prisoner if there ever was one, is quoted: "Sneaking all around the courthouse. Sneaking in and out of ventilators. Sneaking everywhere. Everything is sneaky up around sneakyville. Ha ha ha. Everything we do to get to the truth has to be sneaky. It seems a shame to have to sneak to get to the truth. To make the truth such a dirty old nasty thing. You have to sneak to get to the truth. The truth is condemned." (p 184) To hear such quotes used in a musical context by people other than Manson himself I suggest Hope Organ's "Sneaky" on the Cassette Mythos Audio Alchemy CD/K7 &/or John Moran's "The Manson Family: An Opera".

It seems to me that I don't hear much about anti-authoritarianism any more. That's a shame. In an article entitled "COMMON SENSE What happened to it?" the reader finds this: "Any good bureaucracy certainly cannot tolerate lower-level employees questioning their power or decisions. The rule of thumb is once authority makes a decision it is right. If you don't agree with it something is wrong with you." (p 163) Such hierarchies don't acknowledge that people in 'authority' positions may not be authorities at all, they might just be power-hungry.

"Once an order is issued, it must be deemed correct by the populace, otherwise the people might try to change it. In order to correct this problem, the government spends a great deal training its P.R. people and those that deal directly with the public in the art of guilt. You are not likely to raise a stint about some outrageous policy if you think that (a) you're the only one with the problem and (b) it's your own fault anyway." (p 163) Convincing a person that they're alone in their discontent & making them fearful of discussing it w/ others is an important element of control.

The January, 1991, issue features a tidbit about a person always of great interest: "Any of our readers keep up with Dr. Timothy Leary's work? Well, the Krylon Underground has a copy of Mind Mirror, a piece of software he created a while back. It was marketed through Electronic Arts, but word has it they don't support it anymore. You can probably get a copy through Mindware"[.] "There is also software available for one of his books, What Does WoMan Want? Krylon should be receiving a copy of this fairly soon. Dr. Leary was recently featured on the television show Beyond 2000, where he discussed new software of his based on William Gibson's Neuromancer. The software is designed to work interactively with the user, somehow bringing you into the story, and showing you a unique 15-minute video at the end, with a soundtrack, courtesy of Devo. Go Tim Go!" (p 191) Amazing. & whatever happened to that software? As computers change, what software of great promise & interest dies by the wayside due to lack of support?

Biblical inconsistencies are up next, something that the Christinane seem in perpetual denial of:

"(15) Heaven is supposed to be a perfect place. Yet, it experienced a war (Rev. 12:7). How can there be a war in a perfect place and if it happened before why couldn't it occur again? Why would I want to go to a place in which war can occur. That's exactly what I'm trying to escape, aren't you?

"(16) Believers are told in Mark 16:17-18 that they can drink "any deadly thing" and "it shall not hurt" them. But I don't think you would be naive enough to drink any arsenic offered. Perhaps I'm wrong and you would be willing to test the Book's veracity?--"Lay it on the line" so to speak!"

"These examples expose just a few of the many reasons I can't accept the Bible as the word of a perfect being. A far greater number can be found in the monthly publication, BIBLICAL ERRANCY, which is "The only national periodical focusing on biblical errors, contradictions, and fallacies, while providing a hearing for apologists."" - p 193

Interested readers looking for more material along these lines might want to check out this website: http://infidels.org/library/modern/theism/christianity/errancy.html &/or a bk entitled The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy by C. Dennis Mckinsey.

As a guy who spent quite a bit of time in the late, great punk club, The Marble Bar, in BalTimOre, I was pleased to read an interview w/ members of a DC band called Rest Area in wch it was revealed that Henry Cross, "the bassist and "guy who tells them what to do."" (p 194) was in a band called Judie's Fixation, a band I heard many times & that I was friends w/ one or 2 of the members of.

Heck'o'Goshen! There's even a mention of another favorite cultural hot spot that followed the Marble Bar chronologically: "MD/DC Area scumbags can catch Esmirelda February 15 and 16 in Baltimore at 14 Karat Cabaret" (p 201) It might interest some to know that the woman who ran/runs(?) the Cabaret was once upon a time arrested by the Vice Squad for having 'free blow-jobs' (or something like that) advertised on a poster for an evening there. Maybe they arrested her for false advertising given that the BalTimOre Block district was only a few blocks away where it was well-known that for the cost of a 'bottle of champagne' the customer cd get far more than a blow-job on a daily basis. Oh, uh, that's right, the Mafia 'tips' the police better than artists do.

Krylon had collaged pages of various things including newspaper articles. In one article entitled "Marijuana Patch Discovered: Va. County Official Charged" it's revealed that "Producing marijuana is a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison." (p 198) Remember those days? That was only 25 yrs ago. As of 2015, there are 23 states & Washington DC w/ legalized medical marijuana - something that people were promoting before 1990. In Virginia it's still possible to get a life sentence for large scale marijuana trafficking. Possession of less than 1/2 ounce as a 1st offense can get the defendant 30 days in jail, possession of less than 1/2 ounce as a subsequent offense can get the defendant a yr in jail.

Wch do YOU think is more harmful? The pot smoking or the jail sentence? Personally, I'm not a big fan of pot smoking: in my experience many pot smokers become paranoid & I don't think the paranoia is just the practical paranoia of fear of incarceration & other legal consequences. I've also noticed pot smokers becoming otherwise somewhat impaired, productively dysfunctional I'm inclined to say. That sd, I find imprisonment to be 100% destructive. By all means, legalize marijuana use, call it for medical purposes if you like, but don't be in denial that pot smoking has its downside.

On p 226 there's an ad for a "Walk For Peace" scheduled to take place from Spanish Harlem to Washington Square Park on Saturday, May 18th, 1991. One of the themes was "End the Drug Wars". "CLEAN NEEDLES . . . CHEAP POT . . . IBOCAINE TESTING NOW! . . . TREATMENT NOT PUNISHMENT! HEMP FUEL, NOT OIL!" One of the speakers was Dana Beal. I met him at a house I'd lived in in BalTimOre. He was an advocate for legalized medical marijuana & was trying to work w/ the Green Party toward that end. I had a friend who met him at the same time who was also involved w/ the Green Party who was upset by Beal's linking his pot cause to other environmental issues.

On the opposite page, it's revealed that there were "States with Homosexual and Heterosexual sodomy laws: Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Minnesota, Michigan, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, Washington D.C., Maryland, Rhode Island and Massachusetts." (p 199) Given that I lived in MD at the time & that I both smoked pot AND had anal sex w/ some of my girlfriends I guess that made me a hardened [pun intended] criminal. Is it any wonder that many of us had an attitude toward a legal system in wch mass murder, conducted by the government, is just dandy but consensual penis placement isn't?!

On the very same page, this attitude is presented in an uncensored variation that gives a bomb recipe: "Cork the bottle after lighting it. A really BIG bang. I'm talking about burning the bathroom down!" (p 199) While I certainly have as baaaaaaaaaaaaddddddd an attitude as just about any friendly neighborhood member of the lunatic fringe, I do not endorse bombs - either theirs or ours. Even as a misanthrope, I prefer to avoid risking harming other people at such a level. Unfortunately, the 'they' in that "theirs" cd give a shit.

Unfortunately, even moving to Italy won't help w/ that. Nonetheless, my old favorite, La Cicciolina, was full of good ideas: "The Italian legislator and sexy former porno star Ilona Staller, better known as La Cicciolina has offered a unique plan for peace in the Middle East. The 35-year-old self-proclaimed sex kitten says, "I am available to make love with [Saddam] Hussein to achieve peace. I am willing to let him have his way with me if in exchange he frees the hostages." Who knows, it might work." (p 202) I'm relieved that La Cicciolina didn't get to try out her plan b/c I'm not sure she wd've come back in one piece if the behavior attributed to Uday Saddam Hussein had had anything to do w/ it. Still, La Cicciolina might've found if Hussein really had any weapons of mass destruction.

Next up, Shakespeare!: "EDITORIAL Conspiracy is Everywhere This one's good - thank you WPFW radio. King James hired fifty scholars to rewrite the bible for him, and one of them was none other than William Shakespeare! Since no "signatures" were allowed in the King James Bible, he coded one in. Keep in mind that Shakespeare was 46 years old. In the KJV, go to the beginning of Psalm 46. Count 46 words forward. The 46th word is "shake." Go to the end of Psalm 46. Count 46 words backward. the 46th word is "spear."" (p 205) Oh-Somebody-Else's-God! I'm convinced! I'm the reincarnation of Shakespeare! Anyone familiar w/ my self-description in my high school yrbk written when I was 16 will understand exactly what I mean. The problem is, wch Shakespeare am I?! Interested researchers might want to witness the 2011 movie entitled Anonymous.

& while we're on the subject of who exactly was William Shakespeare?! you might consider asking his misteryess, Karen Eliot, by going to this website: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/SMILEs.html . "Anyone can become Karen Eliot by adopting the name, but they are only Karen Eliot for the period in which the name is used. Karen Eliot was materialized, rather than born, as an open context in the summer of '85. When one becomes Karen Eliot one's previous existence consists of the acts other people have undertaken using the name. When one becomes Karen Eliot one has no family, no parents, no birth. Karen Eliot was not born, s/he was materialized from social forces, constructed as a means of entering the shifting terrain that circumscribes the 'individual.'" (p 215)

The Krylon Underground asks "Is the CIA the World's Largest "News" Organization?" & then provides an interesting chart entitled "Major International News Agencies and CIA Propaganda by Size: Mid 1970s" in wch it's claimed that Reuters has turnover expenditure of $80 m, UPI $75 m, AP $100+ m, TASS (figure not available (or applicable?)), AFP (figure na), CIA $265 m. I have no way of knowing whether this is 'true' but I find it very probable.

In an interview w/ Tesco Vee there's this: "We made fun of Canadians, you saw the Way USA. We got busted going across the border, because Peter had his treatments for the show, like the ideas he had, and he had written down "the Canadians are not our friends, the Canadians are freaks of nature" and you know, brainstorming, all these phrases. And they searched our car, cause Peter has real long hair and they found all this stuff, and they read it. They detained us for three hours, and they were really mad at us, and treated us like shit. We said, "Well, look, just give us our stuff, we'll go back-" "No." "We want to go back, we don't want to go into Canada." "No, just shut up and sit down." While they took it all back with the supervisor, and went through, searched the car, went back, showed him all that. They even said when they handed us the stuff back, "We feel that with some of the things you've written here, you're not wanted in our country." So then we went down to the next bridge, like two minutes away, and they were like, "C'mon in" and just let us through." (p 218)

I can relate. In 1992 I was touring w/ my band "The Official Project". We changed out name every time we played, usually in keeping w/ a formula. There's a movie of this tour online here: https://youtu.be/EN5U7JANpRA . There were 5 of us touring, we had a rented van that we'd modified. Almost all of our money had gone into the rental. I probably had less than $150 to live off of for the next mnth & we weren't expecting to make much money, if any. We had a small box of giveaway items including 10 7" records from Wafer Face, the publisher of the record that the tour was meant to launch but the record hadn't come out yet. The singles had been given to us to give away as promotional items on the tour.

Canadian customs stopped us & decided that we were going to make a small fortune off sales of the contents of this box & that we shd pay them $350 in fees. Given that the box contained the singles, some VHS tapes, & some audio cassettes, their fantasies of our sales were highly delusional. Given that their taking $350 from us was taking something like 1/3rd of what we collectively had, we told them that we'd rather turn back. They told us that we cdn't turn back to the US! Surely that wasn't legal, surely that was kidnapping. They interrogated us for several hrs, 3, 3&1/2, spending most of the time on me. I cd hear them watching one of my movies in an adjacent rm. I'm sure that was a real eye-opener.

We played something like 3 gigs in Canada, one in Montréal, 2 in Toronto at the Zerowork Jubilee. I don't remember getting pd or selling anything at either. We weren't exactly a pop band. A tv crew did come & I'm told we ended up on some prime time Canadian tv entertainment show. I don't recall signing any releases for that, we certainly weren't pd. As we were leaving Canada, we showed Canadian Customs the contents of the box & asked for a refund of the fees for the remaining items. It took them a mere 3.5 hrs to rob us of $350 but it took a yr & a half for us to get a refund of $180. At least we got it. Still, we pd the Canadian government $170 to give away some very obscure & unpopular recordings to a few friends. As usual, I lost money.

If you want to cross the Canadian border, don't look poor, fly over, get taken in in a limo, whatever. Otherwise, they'll rob you &/or throw you out of the country.

PP 222-223 have a convincingly conventional looking pamphlet for "ERP", the "Employee Resistance Program". It's modeled after the type of conventional info pamphlets that might inform the reader about a government program or tooth care or whatever. This one, however, is different:

"Who do I talk to when I have a problem?

"Your friends, mostly (except those at your job, unless you're really sure). Anyone who has some integrity and an idea of how life really works. Do some reading. Try Raoul Vaneigham's "The Revolution of Everyday Life," Bob Black's "Abolish Work," the "Pranks" issue of ReSearch Magazine, or The Situationist International Anthology, ed. by Ken Knabb. Don't pass up "The Book of the SubGenius""

Krylon Underground was a pretty good grab-bag of underground activity & theories in its day. German embraced most of it w/o necessarily endorsing it.

"THIS INFORMATION COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE AND FREEDOM

"THE COMING "OFFICIAL" ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE ALIEN PRESENCE ON EARTH

"WHY "STAR WARS", THE HUBBEL SPACE TELESCOPE, THE SUDDEN FALL OF COMMUNISM?"

[..]

"By secret Executive Memorandum, NSC 5410, Eisenhower established a permanent committee known as "Majority Twelve" (MJ-12) to oversee and conduct all covert activity with the aliens. This included FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and six leaders of the Council on Foreign Relations, known as the 'Wise Men' and later others from the Trilateral Commission. George Bush, Gordon Dean, and Brzezinski were among them.

"A major finding of the commission was the aliens were using humans and animals for a source of glandular secretions, enzymes, hormonal secretions, blood and in horrible genetic experiments. The aliens explained these actions as necessary for their survival, that if their genetic structure were not improved, their race would cease to exist.

"The ruling powers decided that one means of funding the alien project was to corner the illegal drug market. A young ambitious member of the Council on Foreign Relations was approached. His name is George Bush who at the time was president and CEO of Zapata Oil Co. based in Texas. Zapata Oil was experimenting with offshore oil drilling and it was arranged that the drugs could be shipped from South America to the offshore platforms by fishing boats, then transferred to the U.S. shore by normal transportation, thus avoiding search by customs agents. The plan worked better than anyone expected, and today the CIA controls all the world's illegal drug markets. One should remember, it was George Bush who first started selling drugs to our children. The drug money was used to finance the deep underground alien bases. Conclusions: the Bilderburgers, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission are the SECRET GOVERNMENT and rule this nation through MJ-12 and the study group known as the Jason Society." - p 228

For what is to me, at least, a more convincing telling of the relationship between illegal drug dealing & the US government, I strongly suggest reading Alfred W. McCoy's bk The Politics of Heroin.

In an article entitled "INTERACTIVE VIDEO: Tool Empowerment" the following is put forth: "It is obvious that there are as many different ideas as there are peoples, so all our politicians would be retained as Idea, Solution, Agenda, Forum and Law promoters. The only difference that their job would have is that instead of simply personally making a decision, they would be required to propose a vote to those who had the opportunity to elect them. Their personal recommendations concerning how to vote, why to vote, what to vote, etc, would of course be included in the equation. It should now be obvious that the interactive democratic video setup would be reaching to the heart of so many of our problems." (p 234) That reminds me of "The Universal Town Meeting" idea as put forth in Frederik Pohl's The Years of the City (see my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/400962-dome-icile ).

By the 4th of July, 1992, issue (Vol 10, No 1): "a period of high-tech diversion began with the installation of the Krylon Underground online information base (referred to herein as "the BBS")." (p 240)

In a "secret society lineage chart" it's claimed that "F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover & US Congressman Otto Passman, both high-ranking Masons, helped keep the Nazi 'death camps' secret as long as possible, denying their existence even though they were a proven fact no later than 1943" (p 254) I think that the death camps were known about significantly before then. In a 1940 Flash Gordon serial characters are being held in "concentration camps" & a scientist has "perfected a death dust" (quotes from the Flash Gordon serial) in wch dissidents are killed in gas chambers. I reference this in a 2006 movie of mine called "Imagine Utopias". The nazi gassing of mental patients started in 1939. It strikes me as probable that word of this got out almost immediately given that the Catholic Church raised some outcry about it.

The final section is of "Previously Unpublished" material. It starts off w/ Glenn Scheper's "Heroic Alterity" in wch he makes the bold claim: "Autofellation is the core icon to decode all religious metaphor." (p 269) Does that mean that I'm an atheist b/c I can't suck my own dick? Robert Nagler is an interesting writer who reminds me slightly of J.G. Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition era:

"ASKED--ANY LAST WORDS--HE COULD THINK OF NOTHING; HOWEVER, AS THE HOOD DROPPED, HE DID THINK OF SOMETHING AND HE OPENED HIS MOUTH TO SPEAK, THEN... THOUGHT BETTER OF IT

"The obstetrician wanted to leap over the desk and punch the pregnant woman in the mouth. The snow melts. adding to the already dense fog. The fiver smells of urine. He defined Good Management as The Art of Subtle Misdirection; she grins. The argument is clever, incontrovertible in fact, but each student present thinks (feels) the arrow will--must--reach its target -- somehow -- someday. This is a dance she says: Let's dance. He made a reputation by Dealing With Basic Questions, that is, by devising clever answers masquerading as Basic Answers. The watching fourth-graders made no sound at first... just stare. No, she says, shrugging wearily: It's more the myopic leading the myopic. With the storm, the flood; with the flood, the snakes. He admires her silhouette until she turns and.. very wide hips. And because Love Is What Love Is (his phrase), both get what they want." - p 277

All in all, yeah, get this, read it, it's good grab-bag of underground culture of the time & it retains a spirit of questioning authority & open-mindedness to the 'lunatic fringe' that still strikes me as 'valid' &, yes, even 'necessary' in today's not-so-perfect world.

tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

idioideo at verizon dot net

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Anti-Neoism page

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Audiography page

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Bibliography page

to my "Blaster" Al Ackerman index

to the site that lists the Books that tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE has something in or is mentioned in

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE BYOC page

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Censored or Rejected page

to tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE's Collaborations website

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE (d) compositions page

to Amir-ul Kafirs' Facebook page