Now For Something Completely Different

Last month I posted some 45s from Scratch Bongowax & after I did, I looked through some old issues of EAT POOP! 'zine (a punk 'zine I put out in the late 80s & early 90s in inSane Jose with a lotta help from my friends).

We did shows & revu'd musick so I rely on the printed gospel to bridge the gaps in my brain-cell deficient, well, ...brain.

I found one from late '89, EP! ish. #11 that had relevance, then I found the following article, which I decided to reprint here, for your dining pleasure...a screed by none other than yours truly.

So, as usual, enjoy (& I posted up the playlist I'm listening to as I retype this to go along with the read),
NØ



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Juliana Says 'Punk is Dead!' (then it bit her)

Atlantic Records calls. Angelica, B.G.'s personal secretary. (B.G. is Atlantic's West Coast rep. for "alternative" musick - Matador, Disappearing Vinyl, & other small labels). Wants my fax #.

"Are you familiar with our 'zine?", I query, trying to be diplomatic while sensing imminent language failure.

"We've seen #9. We know all about you. S.J. Metro called you ' integral cogs' of the local musick scene. How about a friend with a fax # ?"

Holding back impolite laughter & an almost overpowering strangle reflex, still no sign of verbal awareness.

"What is this about?", obviously.

"Press conference Monday September 13 5pm San Francisco Above Paradise & tickets for that night's show for you & a guest at Slim's...Juliana Hatfield."

Now I draw a blank so I quickly check the next memory blur cylinder for a live round...a drunken night in a stolen car with a stolen keg (yo, fratdudes, thanx). It flashes through the haze...college radio...Taang thang...PoP (Aaargh!)...words like sincere & personal sting like the lashes of an electric whip...bad memories of a badder time, yet the fact I do remember might be a sign.

"Don't fax me, don't fax my friends. I'll be there. Two", thinking of free drinks & grub, "yeah."

We have an all-ages show the day before at Cactus Club. The owner, Calvin, doesn't even bother to mention the show in their Metro ad. "Not enough room." Has to get that Monday Night Football reminder in there in case some dumb jock forgets what night the game is. So the crowd, basically all the bands that are playing, plus their friends & our friends show up for a small but great funfest. What can be better than getting in to a show free, hanging out with some dear friends, getting free drinks, & listening to a line-up of bands of your own choosing? I'm working on a great frame of mind. The line-up is: Slip; Tina Age 13; Big Sissy Brigade; Route 69; Johnny Peebucks & the Swing Udders; & Scratch Bongowax. The show is incredible, & by the end, the stage is completely engulfed in discarded shirts, spewwed food, broken instruments, & dead drinks. The soundguy Wedge showed us after the show where's a broom to clean up & we laughed in his face as we beat a hasty retreat. The planned chaos had unfolded by its own design. Excellence!!!

So I'm primed for Monday afternoon's train ride to S.F. accompanied by fellow Poopster Fudgie D. Klown, awake for once in the evil sunlight, stewing in Fudge-only-knows-what juices. I'm even primed for the walk from 4th & Townsend to Above Paradise (11th & Folsom). I'm really primed, upon arriving, for free drinks...WHICH WE NEVER GET!!!...although everyone else does (like BAM can't write theirs off to business expenses, but EAT POOP! can buy their own...we've been here before). Atlantic might say they "know all about us", but now were here, & it all sinks in to their feeble minds...we're for real...HOW GAUCHE!

I spot Juliana, recognizing her habitual up-the-nose pose from her press kit, & loudly everything clicks into place, the hammer falls, my euphoric primer ignites the loaded explosive that is my remaining brain cells & in a flash it all pours over me like a spilled load of fresh manure... Blake Babies...PRETENTIOUS!!! A parasite of temporal truth crawls slowly but instinctively up my spine, as usual for my more cerebral stumbles...right time, wrong universe. However, in a parallel universe that this NOW calls HOME, Juliana Hatfield Trio...what a bunch of wankers. You can read in other sources represented that night about the first albums they all bought (one was Sat. Night Fever) or the first show they attended, their signs or mood ring colors. Juliana doesn't even have the class to take off her tres cool sunglasses in the 6pm evening club-denizen deep dark (the mainshit correspondents are im-pressed) & I want to suck the eyetruth from her orbs as she lipshits.

Q. - EAT POOP! : "So, like you know, like there are, like, lots of dudes, you know, who like, you know, love jock rock & like, a lot of womyn, like, you know, like, who like these dudes. Then, you know, there are lots of, like grrrls who, like, you know, like, love GRRRL rock, like, you know & like, a lot of guys are hoping, you know. But many EAT POOP! readers are disenfranchised young males & lost young womyn living in a serially dysfunctional world...what exactly do you say to them that will help them relate more easily to one another?"

A. - J.H. : "Duh, huh?"

Q. - EAT POOP! : "Okay, how about an easy one? I have a daughter, 11 years on this marble...she wanted me to ask you...do you really hate your sister & is she really the B-word?"

Before Juliana has a chance to be stumped again, an asshole of unusually large ego from some max rock rag who's ask about 85% of the previous questions asks another...

Q. - Max Rock Rag : "Are you really still a virgin?" (that question is right up there, or at least close, to my top-ten pertinent questions of the Century)

A. - J.H. : (who's in her mid-20s) "Well, I desire & deserve the 'perfect' man & so far I haven't met him, so, yes, technically actually I am a cherry. I masturbate but don't insert."

As if this were our post-hypnotic keyphrase, Fudgie D. & I rush to the front of the Blue Room, bludgeon the Trio boys, & quickly tie Juliana spread-eagled to the interview table. Like a crowd bitten by rabid mob-frenzy, everyone present gathers 'round, chanting "deflower...deflower". They proddingly rupture her poison hymen with appetizer breadsticks as we stand back & watch the mayhem we have spawned. When the howling throng begin dipping the sticks & slurping up the mucal dip with mirth & wit, we head for the exit. Above the ever increasing wail of approaching police sirens, we hear Juliana lamenting the loss of her hymen, her long-time friend that she lovingly dubbed 'Punk'. "Punk is dead, Punk is dead." We pass on Slim's & slither back to the pit.

"Punk is dead, Punk is dead." I wake up & bolt upright in my for-a-fleeting-moment-where-am-I? bed, cold sweating from the nightmare I had just dreamt & have just told. There is a Dark Bros. porno (Green Chicks Need Alien Dicks or something like that) on infinite replay on my leering wall-to-wall. For that lost first instant of non-remembering between sleep & waking, I had believed it...Punk was dead. But life is so much more fun than reality. Punk can never die, for punk means "life" in all its rawest wonderment. Punk is the zombie rebirth of Paul Krassner's hippie duck, but the sign around its neck now reads ANARCHY, as it runs around the Tonight Show stage until it's so dizzy it pukes on Jay Lame-o's shoe.

NØ