The Yellow Rake

Life's a Party: Tim T-Bone

2012-01-14T10:04:00.000-08:00

Plants and Animals and Chomp!

2012-01-08T09:09:00.000-08:00

By Brian Polk
Interview responses by Josh LaBure

The members of Denver’s Plants & Animals have their work cut out for them. As a vegan advocacy group a thousand or so miles from the nearest coast (where plant-based diets seem to thrive), it’s not exactly a piece of—dairy-free—cake convincing meat eaters to give up the flesh. But just as there are liberals in Utah, there are vegans in Denver—no matter how out-of-place they may feel at times. As such, they might as well do what comes naturally to any advocacy group: organize and, well, advocate. That’s the impetuous behind the group’s most successful endeavor, Chomp, a monthly, community-based vegan dinner that’s open to anyone who might be curious about the animal-free diet they’ve been hearing about. Of course, the group also organizes benefits, actions, and other cruelty-free events, all of which Plants & Animals member Josh LaBure spoke with us about.

Are you surprised with how successful Chomp has become?

Yes, sometimes. Whenever I see all the people in line, it’s just crazy. When it started off the first time, there were like 25 people and I thought that was huge. We didn’t even have enough food. We were surprised that even that many people came. When we started doing them at Yellow Feather, we started having 70 or 80 people. Then we had to move spaces. When we started at Green Spaces, we had 120 people at the first one. It blows me away every time I see it. It makes me really proud to be a part of it. I’m really stoked that this event even happens.

How does Chomp fit into your vegan activism?

Chomp fits into my activism because it shows people how delicious vegan food can be, and to make it accessible to people is very important for the sustainability of anybody’s veganism. One of the biggest reasons people don’t go vegan is because lack of choices or it just seems like a difficult decision. So if you make it accessible and make it delicious, it just makes it easier.

Do you do a lot of promotion or is the success all word of mouth?

I just talk a lot. We did a lot of Facebook stuff and I tell everyone I meet about it. I was working at Whole Food full-time and any time I saw anyone buying vegan food, I’d be like, ‘Oh, come to Chomp,’ and give them a flier. And I think the first few with the food being so good from our chefs, that probably got people talking about it. It has become more of a community event.

It is a really great atmosphere. That’s probably a lot of the reason people come back.

I agree. I think that’s the biggest thing: people come, we try to make people feel comfortable, and we just want to make really good fucking food.

What’s the difference between Chomp and Plants & Animals? Or is there one?

We always wanted to keep Chomp separate from what Plants & Animals is doing, but the money from Chomp goes to fund Plants & Animals. And we have the [P&A] table there always, so that’s a big part of it. But Chomp has its own thing going. It doesn’t really feel much like an activist event as much as a community event, which is what we wanted. We didn’t want to come off as preachy vegans at Chomp. We just wanted it to be a comfortable place for people to come and just make it accessible for everyone. I think we’ve been successful in keeping the two vibes different.

What are you able to fund through Chomp?

We got to do some movie screenings. We had an anti-Bluefin Tuna campaign, which went pretty well. We’ve done bake sales, which raise money for other organizations. We also brought Gene Bauer from Animal Sanctuary.

Didn’t you want Chomp to become a vegan grocery store eventually?

Chomp came out of doing potlucks and stuff and ten people would come. At the same time I wanted to open a vegan grocery store and I wanted to call that Chomp. And I wasn’t 100% sure that there was much of a vegan community here, so people suggested that I should create a community event to see. And then I had the idea from the potlucks that maybe we should just do a dinner. Mark and I started doing Plants & Animals stuff and then we were like, ‘Okay, let’s make this a community dinner every month.’ So we just made it donation-based because we thought more people would come. Ever since then I realized there really is a strong vegan community in Denver and that maybe there is a need for something like that. So my eventual goal is to take the momentum gained from the community dinners and open up some kind of grocery store or café or something like that to bring the community together on a regular basis. And I really like this idea of more than one business running a space to keep rent cheap and to keep it more community centered. I really hope to make that happen one day.

Like a vegan mecca?

Exactly. If a few vegan business idea people got together and open up three or four businesses in one spot, I think it would be super accessible to people, keep prices low, and actually open up those businesses.

There’s not a lot of vegan stuff in Denver.

No, I think Denver has a lot of potential that is untapped. I think it’s just now starting to bubble up and something’s happening. You got the Vegan Van opening up. We’re starting Denver Seitan, so hopefully we’ll get that out. I keep hearing about vegan cafes that are opening up, but we’ll see. Hopefully more stuff’s going on.

Tell me about Denver Seitan.

My friend Tim makes seitan and it’s really fucking good. And my friend Mark said, ‘We should sell this.’ And then they brought me on because I know a lot of people in the vegan community and they’re hoping all three of us together with our different abilities will get that off the ground. We’ll see what happens.

Anything else?

Go plantsanimals.org. We have a lot of events coming up.

Things I’d Rather be Doing than Making this List

2012-01-08T09:05:00.000-08:00

By Brian Polk

Attending a conference on phasing out the use of the word “ha-larious” by 2013
I would say, “DJing with a laptop,” but it’s really just playing my iTunes in a bar
Becoming more obese
Attending a conference on phasing out the phrase, “Not so much,” by 2014
Wondering if the ghost of Bob Marley bemoans the fact that people don’t like him due to the lameness of his posthumous followers
Rocking in the free world, something I occasionally forget to keep on doing
Working on being more ashamed of my sexual organs
Coming up with an answer to this question: What’s less awkward, walking in on my roommate while he’s test running his new adult DVD or accepting his invitation to join him? Either way, I think it would lead directly to the next one:
Praising the manufacturers of lube for all the tension they ease
Wondering if the ghost of Jesus bemoans the fact that people don’t like him due to the lameness of his posthumous followers
Admiring my dog for his inability to regret
Going to the after-party in the afterlife, if either exists
Hand-numbering all my records so that I can tell people I have hand-numbered editions of all my records
Explaining to my dog that if I were an Ayn Rand disciple, I’d have to stop feeding him because free meals go against the principles of the free market
Vacuuming the shit-hole I’ve allowed my living room to become
Using “thou” in a sentence that also doesn’t contain the words “holier” and “than”
Getting in on the impending Jazzercise comeback
Making a bumper sticker that says, “Thou shall honketh if thou shall feel hornieth” (Did it!)
Not so secretly becoming embittered by the fact that my unemployed friends take more vacations that me
Transcending life and then transcending death
Growing increasingly annoyed at what turned out to be my ill-advised, unfunny decision to play an Alvin and the Chipmunk record at 78 RPMs
Finding my virginity while listening to the song “Losing my Religion”
Coming up with a list of things I'd rather not be doing than making this list

Spread the Santorum!

2011-12-31T09:11:00.000-08:00

Doing our part to spread santorum:

CLICK HERE!

Also, if you're bored at work or whatever, you should google "Rick Santorum" and then click on the spreading Santorum site. For a full explanation of why you should do this, click here, though I'm sure you've probably heard all about it. I just don't want that fantastic asshole to enjoy his moment in the sun. Fuck Santorum. Actually, fuck and then get santorum and then spread it all around. (I wonder if anyone has a santorum fetish. I think it's time to send Dan Savage an email.)

Review: Hawks and Doves

2011-12-09T17:33:00.000-08:00

Hawks and Doves
Year One
No Idea Records
Even though Gared O’Donnell’s musical reputation—and voice—precede him, the songs on the Hawks and Doves’ debut album Year One are more or less a departure from those of his previous band Planes Mistaken for Stars. While the songwriting and vocalization are unmistakably those of O’Donnell, there’s a depth and melody throughout the record that contrast the sheer intensity of his previous endeavors. Recorded with a backing band that includes familiar names like George Rebelo (Hot Water Music) and Chad Darby (Averkiou), the songs originated from the group’s initial incarnation: O’Donnell and an acoustic guitar. The album's opener “Another Hellfire Sermon” is somber, cathartic, and sweetly melodious in a manner of minutes. The following track “Hush Money” is the record’s catchiest, most harmonious song, even though its coda—“What would you have me do, love? Look what you made me do”—is perhaps its most agonizing. “North of Tenth,” the album’s closer, looks towards a future not so stained with the confusion, pain, and agony of failed romance and broken bands, or as O’Donnell croons at the song’s end, “…It’s time to tell them goodnight and come alive…” Unlike Gared’s previous efforts—that really had to be witnessed live to truly appreciate—Year One is a near-flawless album that sonically documents a time of uncertainty and melancholy with the sweet melody of catharsis and healing.

Buy the album here!

Fame and Fortune: I Don’t Wanna Play Anymore

2011-12-04T10:35:00.000-08:00

Or how to write a semi-coherent column using quotes from Mission of Burma, Jason Flores-Williams, Gertrude Stein, Ian Mackaye, and Eugene Debs

By Brian Polk

Is it truly impossible not to be in awe of fame and fortune? On the surface it’s easy to say, “Fame and fortune is a stupid game,” much like Mission Of Burma on the song, “Fame and Fortune.” But then, much like on that very song, it’s hard not to say, “And fame and fortune is the game I play.” Almost everyone wants to be rich and famous. It’s as American as fried food and complaining about taxes.

In his new book, Character and Fitness, Jason Flores-Williams perfectly encapsulates this American perception of wealth and celebrity when the protagonist’s fellow law school alum reveals his exorbitant corporate lawyer salary of nearly half-a-million dollars a year: “It’s almost impossible not to be impressed when you hear that someone is making that kind of money,” the main character, Neal de la Vega muses. “It’s in the American DNA. Like fame, you may think the person is a reality show moron, but you’re still going to tell somebody later that you saw him.”

So back to the question at hand: Can you avoid the instant respect you seem to magically attain when you discover that someone is making half-a-million dollars a year? Because that’s almost $10,000 dollars a week—more money than I made most years during my twenties. How the hell can that not amaze you? Even if you’re like me and detest the rich for their radical selfishness, irresponsibility, and moral bankruptcy, it’s still difficult not to be taken aback by the sheer accumulation of wealth. Half-a-million is a lot of dollars—especially to people like me who make less in a year than people like that make in a month.

But after the initial shock and awe of mentally applying the salaries of the rich to your meager earnings, you have to ask yourself, “Given the option, would I even want to be rich? Could I even bring myself to do the things that rich people do to each other in the pursuit of wealth?” Even the Franco-supporting, New Deal-hating Gertrude Stein once said, “I do want to get rich, but I never want to do what there is to do to get rich.” Making a lot of money is a dirty fucking business—one that I’m proud to say I have nothing to do with.

Therein lies the dilemma: I know I don’t envy the rich or the famous, because I’m not impressed by what they had to do to get there. And since I don’t want to dirty my hands in the industry of filthy lucre, why the hell am I impressed with people who do? Aside from the “that’s how I was raised” excuse, there is no discernable reason to find wealth impressive when I know damn well I find it disgusting.

That’s why I’m drawing a line in the sand. The next time someone bestows upon my poor eardrums the earnings of one famous rich person or another, I’m going to stoically quote Ian Mackaye: “I can truly say, I don’t give a fuck about your money.” Or if I feel a bit more eloquent, I suppose I could quote Eugene Debs: “The greedy, profit-seeking exploiter cannot see beyond the end of his nose. He can see a chance for an ‘opening’; he is cunning enough to know what graft is and where it is, and how it can be secured, but vision he has none—not the slightest. He knows nothing of the great throbbing world that spreads out in all directions. He has no capacity for literature, no appreciation of art, no soul for beauty. That is the penalty the parasites pay for the violation of the laws of life.”

Checked Out

2011-12-04T10:32:00.000-08:00

Items I Borrowed From the Library This Month

By Brian Polk

Bluebeard

By Kurt Vonnegut

Sadly, in my pursuit to read all the Vonnegut books, I have come to the end. This was the only one of his novels that I had yet to read, and it was a most marvelous book on which to finish. Bluebeard tells the story of Rabo Karabekian, a one-eyed veteran of World War II, who as a youngster serves as an apprentice for a world-renowned artist named Dan Gregory, only to serve in said war where he lost said eye. When he returns to the states, he hobnobs with Abstract Expressionists, buying their paintings and eventually amassing a priceless art collection, which he displays in a mansion he inherits from his late wife. Eventually he meets Circe Berman, a pill-popping author of novels for young adults. Berman cajoles Karabekian into writing his autobiography, which serves as the prose for Bluebeard. Throughout his book, Karabekian constantly refers to his career as a failed painter—who was often on the receiving end of criticism because his paintings lacked soul, and because the paint he used, Sateen Dura-Luxe, eventually detached from all his works, leaving blank canvasses—and to his potato barn, where he kept his biggest secret under lock and key. What’s the secret, you may wonder? You’ll find the answer in Bluebeard, one of the author’s best novels, and an absolute pleasure to read at the end of my Vonnegut journey.

Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now—Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything

By David Sirota

About halfway through Back to Our Future, I realized that I’ve heard of this David Sirota character. In fact, he hosts a liberal daily talk show on KKZN-AM760 and he is a resident of the Mile High City. How about that? And he reminds me of Matt Taibbi—who, incidentally enough, writes a blurb extolling the virtues of the book on the back cover—in that he’s just as smart, funny, and critical of injustice both on the right and left of the political spectrum. When I read a review in the Onion AV Club assuaging my suspicions that this book might be a bad nostalgia trip, I checked out a copy from the library. What I found in the text within affirmed what I assumed: The 1980s ruined America both culturally and politically. As Sirota explains, it was the decade that the yippies became the yuppies (cue Jerry Rubin), being a hippy was passé (the number-one sitcom was Family Ties, a show whose main attraction was a young Republican named Alex Keaton who constantly mocked his hippy parents because they weren’t self-centered, money-obsessed pricks), and the right blamed liberals and liberal politicians for the U.S. Military’s defeat in Vietnam (you’re forgetting one thing: Rambo). And then there was Reagan, the biggest asshole of all. The cultural shift was aided and abetted by a slew of propaganda, which included everything from movies (Red Dawn and Top Gun), television shows (The A-Team and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous), and even sports (the deification of individual athletes like Michael Jordan, while de-emphasizing the team effort). Unlike the 1960s when the youth was obsessed with justice for all, the 1980s gave us one of the most self-centered, greedy, mean-spirited generations of all time. The result is weak-willed liberals (see Clinton) and the money uber alles/me first attitude that continues to pollute our culture. Back to Our Future offers compelling evidence for why our culture is in the toilet and how the decade of the 80s put us there.

Interview: Kilgore Books

2011-08-28T13:22:00.000-07:00

By Brian Polk

If Wax Trax opened a bookstore, it might look a lot like Kilgore Books and Comics, which is fitting, since it occupies the storefront next door (the one that used to house Across the Trax a few years back). Much like the record store, Kilgore is fiercely independent and offers a nice selection of new and used underground gems that are lovingly and carefully stocked by its owners, Luke Janes and Dan Stafford. Throughout the store’s DIY shelving units, one might expect to find reasonably-priced used books by Kurt Vonnegut and Tom Robbins, Kilgore-published issues of Noah Van Sciver’s comic Blammo, or zines like Cometbus and even The Yellow Rake. On a bustling afternoon, I spoke with Dan about the essence of Kilgore while a cavalcade of 13th Avenue regulars thumbed through the shop’s selection of books, zines, and comics.

Brian: What was the motivation behind the founding of Kilgore Books?
Dan: Luke Janes is the guy I run the shop with. He and I were roommates at a place on Marion and 13th. He was working at Cap Hill books and I was doing non-profit, mostly environmental work. And we were having one of those three-or-four beer conversations on the porch, like, ‘What’s your dream job?’ And we both realized running a used bookshop would be the coolest job in the world. So we basically went from there into a critique of all the used bookstores in Denver. I mean we have great used bookstores in Denver, but the big thing that was lacking was that no bookstore had a huge science fiction section — except maybe Fahrenheit’s; I don’t want to cast aspersions — but we wanted ours to be better. And then a lot of kind offbeat stuff that we like to read — not even that offbeat, but like Kurt Vonnegut or John Fante, that kind of stuff — you couldn’t find used anywhere. It would always blow my mind that I would go to a huge used bookstore and I couldn’t find a single Kurt Vonnegut book, and he’s one of the biggest writers of the 20th century. We needed a bookstore that always has the really good shit. And of course the other thing that was really woefully missing from the Denver scene was independent comics. Tattered Cover wasn’t really doing comics at the time and the zine library was closed at that point. The zine and comic scene in Denver was really lacking in terms of a space for people to sell their stuff. So that was the rational: Both of us wanting to be our own boss and to run the kind of bookstore we would love to go to. The kind of bookstore where you’d literally want to hang out for four hours because there’s good music and a good vibe and it smells good and there’s an uncrotchety guy behind the counter.

Would you consider the decision to open the store a success?
Yeah, I would. It’s funny; I had these two guys in the store today who are old Denver book guys — one is in his 80s and the other in his early 70s and they’ve run different shops throughout Denver for the last 40 years. One guy said, ‘How’s it going?’ And I said, ‘Well, it’s good. We’re making a living.’ And his jaw dropped, and he said, ‘You’re making a living selling books?’ Luke and I have really understanding wives with good jobs, so that helps. But I’m really happy we’ve done it. It’s opened a lot of doors that we wanted open: being able to do publishing stuff like comics and being able to provide local writers and local artists with a venue that wasn’t just a gallery space. So I think it’s been really successful. I do think we’re at an interesting crossroads right now where the space is great, but we’re at a maximum capacity. This is the amount of space we have and we’ve filled every nook and cranny of it. Only so many people will come here on a given day, so it will be hard for us to grow. And while we are making a living, it’s not a great living. Our hope is to figure out an expansion plan so we can incorporate more mini-comics, more zines. Since there are only two of us, we can only do so much outreach to people to say, ‘Hey, come sell your stuff here.’ And until we can do more of that, we’re not going to get more customers who come in looking for a wider variety of things. We’re looking to find a bigger space if we can, but we don’t want to move, because that would suck too.

Is it nice being next to Wax Trax?
It’s awesome, are you kidding? I’ve expanded my record collection. It’s doubled in the last three years. But more importantly — well you interviewed Duane [Davis], right?

Yeah.
That guy’s awesome. Him and Dave Steadman are the last of a dying breed of really respectable DIY businessmen. The other day I went to get a thing of water and I was walking past Jelly and Beauty Bar and I was thinking about those two businesses that are new in the past year. And both of them are the kind of thing where the people had some capital and they spent a 100 grand and they got the nice sign made and the fancy lighting and whatever. And I thought, ‘Huh, we didn’t do any of that at Kilgore.’ Every single thing here we built with sweat and getting our friends to do it — just going the cheapest possible, DIY route versus the ‘take a big loan’ and do it that way. That’s kind of the Wax Trax spirit, punk rock thing that we love and seek to honor and emulate in some way. And honestly as our landlords, those guys are great. We have a handshake deal with them and we’ve paid the same rent every month for three years and it’s a really low amount of rent. That’s the thing that allows us to make a living at this. They could have charged us a lot more but they don’t need to so they’re not going to, which is unheard of in a landlord.

You do have a kind of Wax Trax vibe here, kind of a non-pretentious shop that appreciates independent, creative expression. That’s probably the kind of thing you wanted to begin with, right?
Yeah, when I was a kid my friends and I would make zines. And one of my best friends bought a photocopier from the school supply auction for $50 and we would make zines and send them off to Factsheet Five. When I was doing the political stuff, I kind of got out to that whole scene, but my memory of it was like, listening to the Dead Milkmen, riding a skateboard, and photocopying funny shit — maybe writing Jello Biafra a letter and hoping he’d write back. Getting back into it, it’s funny because there is there hyper-pretension of the small press community of these precious art object books, which I think are really beautiful and have a place. But that was something I discovered. It’s like the concert poster thing. I used to collect concert posters because I was like, ‘I was at that show and it was awesome. I’m going to put that in my bathroom and every time I take a piss I’m going to remember Butthole Surfers or whatever.’ And now show posters are limited edition and screen-printed with 14 colors and they don’t hang them up anywhere. I guess our one pretension is that we try to be anti-pretension.

You worked for non-profit campaigns before opening Kilgore, and you’re still very connected with that, obviously. You ran as a write-in candidate for city council in the 8th district. By the way I’m not in your district or I would have voted for you.
Thanks. [Laughter]

Oh yeah. Anyway, do you miss working with non-profits in more of a political oriented atmosphere?
Yes and no. I think that to me, all of that stuff is wrapped up in who you are as a person. The way you live your life, the way you treat people, the way you operate a business, the way you engage civically, the way you treat your kids, the way you treat your partner — all those things are who you are as a person. When I did political organizing work, I never thought, ‘This is my job, and then I have a separate life.’ I was fortunate that I got paid to do something that I believed in strongly. That same ideology blends itself into the Kilgore thing. I think we treat people fairly when they come in to sell stuff. We pay for stuff up front because we know consignment kind of sucks. We push local people because we want those people to be successful. It’s just that spirit of doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. To me, whether I’m involved with politics or some creative venture or business venture, it’s all the same. But I still do a lot of the political stuff. I spend about 20 hours a week working for this organization. I still have a toe in each water anyway. And the election thing was just dumb luck — well luck isn’t the right word because someone died. But it was a crazy confluence of situations where our City Council woman — who was pretty good — passed away so it was definitely going to be a write-in election because hers was the only name on the ballet. And I though I was the only person that I trusted to actually be a progressive voice on the City Council. So that’s what I was going for.

Is there anything else you wanted to touch upon? Does Kilgore have an underlying philosophy of sorts?
The only thing we try to do is we try to say yes to as much as we can. For example we had a lady come in the other day who just wrote a kid’s book. And she said, ‘Do you do anything with local authors?’ And I said, ‘Yes we do.’ Because anyone who’s taking the time to try to create something—it’s a hassle to try to deal with the bureaucracy that is involved with disseminating your creative vision. And so if we can help with any of it, even a little bit — if we can sell one book by a guy who really put his heart and soul into it, and that makes his day and it makes our day and it makes the reader’s day — it’s the greatest thing on earth. Of course, Luke and I can get curmudgeonly about some of the people who come in from time to time.

Who wouldn’t?
Yeah, it is retail. But the idea is like, ‘Yeah, let’s say yes to everything.’ And some of it will work and some of it won’t, but at least we’ll try. It’s a pretty good philosophy for us.

Music I’ve been listening to in a sentence or two

2011-08-28T13:14:00.000-07:00

By Brian Polk

The Knew, Before It Ends, SFP Records
Holy shit, a band that manages to successfully mix the likes of Alice Donut, Television, and Elvis Costello (at least that’s what I hear as I play it over and over again on my record player). My new favorite seven-inch.

Citizen Fish, Goods, Alternative Tentacles
I don’t know what it is about this record that makes me so happy, but it probably has something to do with the fact that it’s the best album the band has ever made. (My name is Brian and I acknowledge the boldness of this statement). Best ska-punk band ever.

Rumspringer, Empty Towers, Traffic Street Records
For the longest time, I thought good pop-punk was a thing of the past, and then I bought this record and realized I was wrong. Great for enthusiasts of the poppier punk.

Cat Stevens, Very Best of Cat Stevens, Some label
I don’t want to be one of those guys who grows old and refuses to listen to anything other than the music of his formative years. With this in mind, I checked this CD out from the library and I have to say, I am quite pleased with the result.

Street Eaters, We See Monsters, Bakery Outlet Records
Awhile back my band played with Street Eaters at the 404, and I enjoyed the set so much, I bought the record. The singer was in the Fleshies, his wife plays drums, and they write politically inspired punk/rock. What’s there not to like?

Yellow Rake Release Party

2011-08-19T09:48:00.000-07:00

The Yellow Rake is celebrating the release of its 26th issue on Friday, August 26th by throwing a party where ALL the proceeds benefit Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary! For a mere $6, you can see Charly “The City Mouse” Fasano and Dave Paco reading from their new books, Dan Landes reading from his forthcoming book, and Cuatro, 66 Days, and Joy Subtraction rocking and rolling through the evening. So come on down and support local literature, music, and of course, the animals at Peaceful Prairie!

Review: Next Analog Broadcast

2011-06-22T19:32:00.000-07:00

By Charly “The City Mouse” Fasano
sunnyoutside
(Review by Brian Polk)

The common misconception with the cultural output of punk is that anyone can do it. Supposedly all you need is the audacity and determination to plug in a guitar or slap together a zine and — presto! — punk is made. Of course it’s not so easy, is it? Sure anyone can make a trite, forgettable band or zine, but the remarkable punk music and literature weren’t just really good for what they were, they were really fucking good, period. Charly “The City Mouse” Fasano grew up ensconced in the punk scene, and though he didn’t have a band or a publication, he still contributed with his genre of choice — poetry. And sure it takes courage to revivify such a haughty style of writing in the name of the everyman, and Fasano would’ve failed miserably if he weren’t so achingly sincere. But of course, as his new book — his first for the Buffalo, New York imprint sunnyoutside — Next Analog Broadcast demonstrates, his words go beyond sincerity. In fact, all his poems seem to be linked by a common thread of smirking bemusement at the absurdity of human behavior, not only in the ostentatious characters that provide the poet with constant entertainment, but by the self-aware awkwardness and posturing of the poet himself. The poem “What’s Your Name Again” perfectly encapsulates this eagerness to take satisfaction in his curious world: “If she says something about herself, it will give me a break from showing off.” In the poem, “Hard On Everyone,” he muses about past relationships in a similar manner: “The woman I was dating at the time didn’t believe that I went to the porn shop for sodas. She stopped sitting on my side of the booth at dinners. She made me leave my shoes outside when I’d visit her house. She didn’t want me to track in where I’d been.” But the poet is at his best when he takes pride in his socially perceived shortcomings. In the poem, “Wallet” he writes, “A lot of folks think my USA is all about winning and the wallet … I lost my wallet two days ago.” Fasano’s self-deprecation, bitter sense of humor, and celebration of underachievement are most definitely by-products of the punk culture that reared him. And since his poems so easily relate to the proud underclass of society with humor and forthright earnestness, Next Analog Broadcast isn’t just a good book of poetry inspired by a subculture and printed independent of the mainstream. It’s a good book of poetry, period.

The Greed First Institute: Rich are Ones at Bottom of “Trickle Down” Theory of Economics

2011-04-29T14:06:00.000-07:00

By Brian Polk

Cornelius Albert Randus, chief executive of The Greed First Institute, confirmed at a press conference on Tuesday what economists have been saying for generations, sort of. According to Randus, the popular “Trickle Down” theory of economics, a seminal tenet of Reaganomics, benefits those at the foot of society, but that the “Trickle Down Triangle,” or TDT, is inverted, so that the rich are actually the ones at the bottom.

“Basically, the rich are on top of everything,” said Randus. “Society, financial markets, government — you name it, the rich are on top of it. It’s in this one area, the TDT, that the rich are actually at the bottom. You see, now we know how it feels to be down and out for once.”

The TDT, which was revealed for the first time at Tuesday’s press conference at the group’s Filthy Richie Center, demonstrates the success of the controversial economic theory by placing the richest 1% of Americans at the point of the upside-down triangle. Meanwhile, the richest 10% occupy a very small strip near the richest 1%, and after a considerable gap, the rest of Americans are at the base of the triangle, which, according to the model, is the “top.”

“As you can see here,” said Randus, pointing to the chart, “The poor are up at the top, trickling down what little riches they have to the wealthy at the bottom here. So basically, laissez faire capitalism, while terrible for the poor, is actually working wonders for people like me who don’t even need anymore money."

“So don’t let anyone tell you that Reaganomics doesn’t work!” Randus exclaimed to the crowd, prompting a standing ovation.

Throughout the press conference, hardy guffaws often tore through the overweight, tuxedo-clad audience — many of which wiped tears from their eyes with $100 bills — as Randus humorously underscored the irony of ruthlessly denying Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security to the poorest of Americans, while the billionaires in attendance continued to refuse to pay taxes they could easily afford 6,000 times over.

“I mean we could pay taxes,” said Randus over the bedlam, “but that wouldn’t be putting Greed First, would it?”

After the crowd quieted down, Randus steadied himself, and expounded upon the significance of his revelation.

“When Reagan enacted this theory of economics, he led average Americans to believe that they would somehow benefit from our wealth,” he said. “That it would ‘trickle down’ from our overflowing bank accounts into their dusty pockets. Of course we knew all along that the only trickling was from their bare refrigerators onto the massive buffets of our luxury yachts. I can’t believe that no one put it all together until now."

“Oh, and thanks for the bailouts, suckers!”

Meanwhile outside of the convention hall, a dozen or so protestors from the People In Need Charity held signs advertising slogans like, “Greed is wrong,” “We’re all in this together,” and at least one placard quoting Matthew 19:24, “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

“We’re basically here because we believe hoarding wealth is wrong when there are people in this country who lack access to basic medical care and healthy food to eat,” said Ricky Peate, one of the protestors. “At what point do these people say, ‘I’m rich enough. I don’t need anymore money’? I mean, these guys make more in a day than I made in the last three years.”

When asked to comment on the scant turnout on behalf of the protestors, Peate responded, “Well, several hundred of us planned on coming, but everyone else is hard at work, making these assholes even more money.”

The Day My Records Came to Life

2011-04-24T10:54:00.000-07:00

By Brian Polk, Animation by Nate Stone

Maybe I was a bit delirious when it all happened. After all, I did have a nasty case of the flu, which, between vomiting in a bedside bucket and moaning, can make anyone hallucinate. And I did happen to watch the movie Toy Story about six times in a row — mainly because it was the only DVD in the player and I had no energy to change it. Or maybe my records defied all laws of physics and common sense and magically came to life ala the very movie that I had been watching.

Whatever way it happened, this much I can say for sure: The quarrel began when the Clash’s debut album began mocking the band’s last effort, Cut the Crap. Normally these records would have never been placed together on the shelf, but before I got sick I spent a perfectly good Thursday evening drinking beer and listening to all my Clash albums. However, I have two copies of the first record (both the UK and US versions) and the US version remained on the shelf where it picked a fight with poor old Cut the Crap, a record whose sheer shittiness permanently affixed it to the storage unit. And though I didn’t really appreciate the bedlam, it made sense that the fight occurred: When the Clash recorded its first record, the band members were in their 20s and full of youthful exuberance. On Cut the Crap, only two original members remained, they were in their 30s, and they wrote a really shitty album. It was only natural for the younger Clash to ruthlessly mock the elder incarnation.

Because I was in such a miserable state, it didn’t dawn on me that the sudden consciousness of my record collection was anything out of the ordinary. But it didn’t take me long to fully grasp what was happening: Apparently while I was groaning and adding to my puke bucket during the repeated showings of Toy Story, my albums found inspiration in toys that came to life in their owner’s absence. And since they knew I was bedridden and out of my head, they figured they would try it out.

As if inspired by the Clash argument, Rancid’s first record shouted across a few albums to taunt its recent piece of shit, Let the Dominos Fall. NOFX’s Punk in Drublic lambasted Liberal Animation for being a terrible first album. And the 80s SNFU hardly recognized the 90s SNFU (especially Something Big and Leafy This Way Comes), and both SNFUs thought In the Meantime and In Between Time was essentially dispensable to its catalogue.

On a positive note, the first Ramones record high-fived Brain Drain for keeping it real after all those years. Iggy Pop was equally enamored with himself as a solo artist and as the Stooges front man. And all of the Nomeansno albums complemented themselves on how fantastic, if not under-appreciated, they were.

Amid all the in-fighting and self-congratulations between band records, certain albums began speaking up for other reasons. The Frank Zappa’s You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore was sick of being stuck between Youth Brigade and the Zounds, repeatedly claiming it belonged next to Coltrane Jazz. However, the latter record was busy petitioning for a specific jazz section so it could hang out with the Dizzy Gelespie, Miles Davis, and Louis Armstrong recordings; it neglected to mention anything Zappa-related. Similarly Jimmy Cliff and Toots and the Maytals expressed their desire for a reggae division since the discrepancies in their names kept them too far apart in the main collection to smoke the ganja together. The Strike Anywhere LPs condemned segregation of any kind only to be called “cracka-asses” by NWA’s Straight Outta Compton. While almost all the records objected to NWA’s comment, only one LP spoke up.

“Don’t talk to those Strike Anywhere records like that,” said Arcade Fire’s Funeral. “They don’t mean any harm.”

“Aw, shut up, ya damn Canadian crackas,” responded NWA. “Fuck all y’all.”

“This is crazy!” M.I.A.’s Kaya blurted out, “What the hell am I even doing here with all of you?”

“Get used to being out of place,” said the Beach Boys recordings.

“Shut up, surfer boys,” said Slim Cessna’s Auto Club’s Always Say Please and Thank You. “You’re a bunch of ungrateful bastards.”

“Go to hell,” sung the Beach Boys albums in a harmonization typical of the group’s recordings.

“Enough!” shouted Johnny Cash’s At Folsom Prison over the commotion. And at the sound of the Man in Black’s voice, a deathly silence fell over the collection. “We’re all records here,” the multi-platinum selling album continued. “And we should act like records, damn it. We’re here to entertain and enhance Brian’s life. That’s why he bought all of us in the first place.”

“We also make him think,” said Subhumans’ The Day the Country Died.

“That’s what it’s all about,” said all the Dead Kennedys albums.

Aside from a few sporadic jeers from the Sex Pistols record and a convoluted poem slurred by the Doors albums, the collection was relatively silent in its own contemplation.

“At Folsom Prison is right, you know,” I told my records. “Aside from a few of you that I only listened to once, you’re a good collection.”

My LPs looked at me wide-eyed in stunned silence, as if I had just caught them in a lewd act of self-pleasure. They didn’t know that I was conscious. Accordingly, they straightened up and attempted to act as though nothing was amiss, just like kids in church.

After that I got dizzy, added a considerable amount to my puke bucket, and fell asleep. When I awoke, the records never made another peep unless I put them on the turntable.

Issue Number 25

2011-04-24T10:52:00.000-07:00

A Day at the Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary

2011-04-24T10:48:00.000-07:00

By Brian Polk

“Your neighbors must think you’re nuts,” said one of my fellow guests.
“Oh yeah,” said one of the operators of Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary, “but that’s how we know we’re doing the right thing. It’s once we start fitting in that we’d have to worry.”

It’s strange that we live in a culture where doing the right thing is considered eccentric. If you quit your lucrative private sector job to become a social worker, for example, a lot of people will think you’re damn crazy—including some of those very people you’re helping with your social work. (Side note: My brother is a social worker who helps at-risk youth. Certain members of those at-risk youth make fun of him for driving a car that’s far from its prime. His response? “At least I have a car.”) If you make a concerted effort not to watch television, a lot of people resent the hell out of you for even mentioning it. And if you eschew the flesh and milk of animals because you think it’s unnecessary and wrong, a whole lot of people will find your decision detestable, and they won’t hesitate to say so.

But doing the right thing has never been easy. And that’s why people who make personal sacrifices in order to do the right thing never cease to impress the hell out of me. So when I spent an afternoon at a “Veganize It!” cooking class at the Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary, I couldn’t help but admire all the folks who ran the place. They’re kindhearted souls who have devoted their lives to creating a refuge for rescued farm animals, such as goats, llamas, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and other animals not commonly accepted at shelters. And while the cooking class was geared towards those at the beginning of veganism—and not seasoned vegan cooking professionals like myself—the experience was nonetheless soul-rewarding.

Check them out online:

http://www.peacefulprairie.org/

If you have money burning a hole in your pocket, consider donating.
They have a lot of mouths to feed!

Review: Egghead

2011-04-24T10:41:00.000-07:00

Egghead
Would Like a Few Words With You
CD
Rating: Thirteen stars out of fifteen or so

Good-humored pop punk hasn’t exactly been inundating what’s left of the punk scene. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, because even back in the 90s — when this type of music was ubiquitous — there weren’t a whole lot of pop punk groups that were any good. But occasionally a band like Egghead would come along and remind you why anyone listened to pop punk in the first place: It can be a whole lot of fun when it’s tongue-and-cheek, genuine, and catchy — and Egghead’s songs have all these traits in spades. Let’s start with the album’s best song: “My Daughter Can Fuck up Your Daughter,” a tune about how the singer’s rough-and-tumble toddler can mop the floor with all the other daycare toddlers. (Oh, to be a proud father.) Then there’s the insanely catchy “Stuck Inside a Stuckeys (with Leonard from the Dickies),” a ditty that beckons to be played over and over again — at least if you’re someone like me who appreciates a good pop punk tune. And don’t forget “Holy Okatodden!” which isn’t that great of a song, but I mention it because mentioning three songs makes for a well-rounded review. Egghead’s Would Like a Few Words With You has been in constant rotation in my CD player (mainly because I don’t have very many CDs, but still). It’s pop punk in all its goofy, goodtime glory.

Review: Citizen Fish

2011-04-23T10:25:00.000-07:00

Citizen Fish
Goods
LP
Alternative Tentacles / Bluurg Records
Rating: How could this possibly not be good?

Wouldn’t it be weird if Citizen Fish came out with an album with songs about their favorite television shows, making lots of money, and trusting government to do the right thing? It would be the Bizzaro World Citizen Fish album and it would only be available for download on Amazon. Of course, with Goods, there are no such songs. In fact, all of the problems the group began singing about all those years ago still exist — and they’re much worse than they were before. That’s why it’s still so relevant to sing about the damaging effects of television (“Human Conditioner” and “Click”), waking up (in the aptly titled tune “Wake Up”) and the perils of fear and hate (“Better”). With each new punk generation discovering the group (I bought my first Citizen Fish album in 1998), the importance of conveying the message of self-reliance, anti-greed, and pro-giving-a-shit cannot be understated in such a self-destructive, vain society. Of course if a band can put these messages to a danceable, catchy soundtrack, then why the fuck not? Citizen Fish helped shape my personal and political outlook as much as Dead Kennedys and Propagandhi. It’s music for the soul.

Give Me Your Time

2011-04-23T10:22:00.000-07:00

By Brian Polk

With all the depressing shit that has come out of my mouth over the years, you might be surprised to hear that I am totally and completely in love with life (not in a hippie, “I love life because it’s special and everyone’s beautiful” kind of way, but more in an “I love life because the act of making art and playing games in the park is so fucking satisfying, it’s beyond words” kind of way.) I love doing things like making zines, throwing the Frisbee around, riding my bike, and playing and listening to music. I love waking up on my days off with the promise of endless bliss just waiting for me to find it. It’s like a scavenger hunt where the fun is just as much in the search of hidden gems as it is in actually finding them.

But, of course, with every patch of blue sky, there are always splotches of pollution that just mess everything up. And the splotches of pollution that get in my way are all related to time—that is, there just isn’t enough of it. When I embrace the gigantic smile on my face after making stencils for t-shirts, or laying out my zine, or making noise with my drums for an hour or two, I always have one eye on the clock, because time is the enemy of the lover of life. Since I work forty hours a week, I have all sorts of obligations, so fitting in all the things that make life worth living is an eternal struggle.

So every time I see people wasting their free time watching TV or complaining about being bored, I get utterly offended. Free time is a gift, and if you’re going to waste it in front of the television watching bullshit programs or playing ridiculous video games, then you might as well donate your time to someone who will actually appreciate and use it.

For example, your roommate wasted an hour complaining about how there’s nothing to do, when he could have been walking the dog (who, incidentally, would love to go for a walk; hell, she’s been waiting for someone to take her for a walk all week). But since you’re just going to waste your time complaining, I’ll take that hour off your hands and the dog and I will run around the park like a couple of crazies.
Or, let’s say, you spend two hours flipping through the channels, grumbling about how there’s nothing good on TV while an idea you had for a comic strip goes unrealized. Why don’t you tell me the idea, give me those two hours, and I’ll draw the comic strip even though you’re a much better artist than me. At least two hours and an idea won’t go to waste.

Better yet, if you’re so tired of finding ways to whittle away your leisure hours, you could volunteer to take a couple of my shifts down at the library. Then I could take your dog to the park, draw your comic strips, and concentrate on music and making more issues of this zine. Our little arrangement solves all sorts of problems.

So before you go squandering the precious hours of your life, please consider donating to the time-needy. There are people in your own city who try to fit a lifetime-and-a-half in a single lifetime. Meanwhile you watch yours pass you by from your spot on the couch. Don’t be time-greedy. Give today at your nearest time donation center.

Review: The Inactivists

2011-03-25T12:32:00.000-07:00

The War on Jazz Hands
CD + bonus download

“We’re envious of everyone who isn’t us,” proclaims The Inactivists on its new CD, The War on Jazz Hands, after name-dropping more commercially successful Denver bands like the Fray and Flobots. Of course, its comparative impact doesn’t really seem to bother the band all that much (aside from a bit of envy), especially since the five-piece is back with all its notorious calamity and sarcasm. While the songs on the disc navigate a variety of genres, they all have certain similarities: That is, they all seem to hatch a lyrical concept and then lock into some kind of groove, whether it's traditional pirate folk (in “Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash,” a name borrowed from the Pogues or Winston Churchill), American tavern funk* (“Press the Spacebar”), or space lounge (“I Fail at Life”). The CD’s titular song functions as a musical declaration of both its style (apparently The Inactivists are both a be-bop and hip-hop band, among other things), and its courageous battle against jazz hands. “You Give Me a Hard-On,” is a sinister ballad cover of a Little Fyodor track; it's about boners and everything boner-related. And then there’s “Vegan Zombies,” a fancy little number mocking vegan stereotypes (i.e. all non-meat eaters are hacky sac-playing dirty hippies with dreadlocks). The best thing about this release is that it has to be the only CD that comes with a free download of a whole other CD. And on the back cover there’s a “Nice Price” sticker, so you know it’s a bargain. With The War on Jazz Hands, The Inactivists are doing what it does best: Making provocative upbeat songs that separate those who have a sense of humor and like to have a good time from those who don’t.

*I just branded this genre. (Think pub rock but American and funk.)

Recipe: Tap Water Soup

2011-03-11T11:25:00.000-08:00

Back when I was a lad eking out an existence in a shanty on the muddy banks of the Cherry Creek, my evil Auntie Eris — who took custody of me and my blind little brother after a gory bubble wrap accident claimed the lives of my parents — used to serve up this dish whenever the mighty rumbling of our stomachs became so loud that she couldn’t concentrate on feeding and grooming her 16 evil cats.

Ingredients:
Tap Water

Preparation:
Fill up bowl with warm tap water. If you’re especially evil, allow water to cool until it’s somewhere between lukewarm and tepid. Garnish with air.

Scratching the Surface:

2011-03-04T11:53:00.000-08:00

Why I’m still playing in punk bands after all these years
By Brian Polk

· I don’t like it when more than four paying customers show up to watch my band play.
· I’m still impressed by the punk credo: “Learn another chord, start another band.”
· When old friends ask me what I’m doing with my life, I don’t have to come up with anything new to say.
· By playing in two different bands—and subsequently saturating the market by ignoring the concept of supply and demand—I’m staying true to my anti-capitalist roots. (Never making more than $20 a gig also contributes to this end.)
· Since I never bothered learning to play guitar solos, I’m totally against them.
· I accepted a long time ago that “making it” on any kind of level isn’t going to happen, so I might as well play good music.
· Since no one else plays punk anymore, I like to think of myself as unique.
· If I don’t demonstrate that the 20-minute set is not only attainable, but desirable, opening bands might get the idea that it’s okay to go on for an hour.
· I’ve been to shows where the audience just stood around and “appreciated” the band. I couldn’t believe how lame this was.
· I don’t ever want to have too much in common with my parents.
· I never sold out (mainly because no one ever offered me anything to sell out to, but it’s still an accomplishment nonetheless).
· Even though punk is unpopular and everything, it’s still more relevant than anything the hipsters have come up with.
· Since most punks I know are either married, twice divorced, or otherwise undateable, we don’t have to care that punk isn’t attractive to members of the opposite sex.
· Since I’ve amassed an embarrassing amount of knowledge about a single genre of music, I might as well stick with what I know.
· I need something to show for my unyielding commitment to bitterness.
· Yelling out of key doesn’t go well with alt-country, electro, or valium rock, and I’m okay with that.
· Punk is the only music that sounds good through the deafening roar of my tinnitus.

It Happens All the Time

2011-03-04T11:44:00.000-08:00

Deviants and Devices: An Interview with Charly Fasano

2011-02-11T14:50:00.000-08:00

It’s certainly no secret that the digital revolution has been commandeering the artifacts of artistic creation for years. Records, tapes, and books are all being replaced by digital downloads — mainly because our ears are too precious for skips and pops, and our eyes wouldn’t know what to do if it didn’t have a screen to stare at. Of course, with every digital innovation unleashed in a thoroughly saturated market, there are artists who eschew the brave new virtual world altogether. Charlie “the City Mouse” Fasano and his twin brother Vincent Fasano both have two feet firmly planted in the world of analog. With an ever-expanding catalogue of books, tapes, and paintings, the Fasano brothers have no plans to completely digitize their creative output (though they do often include accompanying downloads, but even then, they’re generally more of an afterthought). Their upcoming show, Deviants and Devices, is a celebration of the non-digital world, featuring a collection of paintings, collage prints, instant photography, short films, and books (Charlie Fasano is releasing two new books, Deviants and Devices, a handmade journal of linocut prints published on his Fast Geek Press imprint and Next Analog Broadcast, a book of poetry published by the Buffalo, New York-based Sunnyoutside Press).

So what’s the allure of analog?
I like how tangible and imperfect it is. Analog gives you mistakes; it’s more human in that aspect. With digital, I feel like it’s in a vacuum. It’s too perfect. And digital is easy; you just press a button and it’s done. With analog, it takes more time to create. And of course, it breaks, you know? It’s not forever. If all the lights ever went out, the analog people would handle it much better.

What does "Deviants and Devices" mean?
It’s a title I came up with because when I got home from Chicago, I started working on Colfax again. And working in the evenings, I stand there and watch people. So I’ve been getting into linocut prints and I just started making portraits of deviants and the devices they use. The show incorporates a bunch of linocut prints, short films that both me and Vinny shot, some stamp collages, and paintings by my brother. There’s going to be recordings of poems that I did and put together and played all the music on. It all culminates into releasing a handmade, hand printed, linocut illustration book that’s going to come with seven recordings of the poems and that’s called Deviants and Devices.

So you handmade the book?
Yeah, it’s a little thirty-page hand bound, hand printed chapbook. It’s going to be thirty prints with a download card with recordings that I put together. I played organ and my $80 pawnshop guitar called The Amigo, made in Romania. I sat and taught myself how to do all this stuff. I’m hand binding them as well. It’s one of those things that I did everything for it myself, and taught myself. Usually I have a lot of other people I collaborate with, but this is the one time that I tried to put it all together.

Why did you try putting it together yourself?
I don’t know… It teaches you how to do things really quick. This was a project that if I was going to do it, I wanted to try to work through all the problems of learning how to do things. It’s inspired by the shenanigans on Colfax Avenue, so there’s a level of shankiness, I guess. Or just kind of an unfinished thing about it. That’s the subject matter. Colfax is like a kid acting out.

A lot of times when people talk about Colfax and the people on it, there’s a level of patronization, like I’m better than those people. So with this book, how are you presenting the people on Colfax?
It’s a subjective look. I started out making these prints and these portraits and I started doing those before I wrote the poems because I wanted to stay as a partial observer. It’s just little photographic clips. There’s humor involved, but I’m not pointing the finger at anything or anybody specific. It’s not to degrade any sort of person or anything. There’s a spectrum of different characters in it, from a lady that goes and prays every day at seven o’clock at the Cathedral to a yuppie swinging his briefcase at bunch of skateboarders, or video store workers looking the same in every town.

What is it about Colfax that’s inspiring?
It’s funny because people who live in the Capitol Hill area walk through it every day and they don’t notice what’s going on. I’ve stayed at a stationary point at Colfax and Lafayette for years where I work, and there are the same reoccurring characters, and it’s a big cross-section of characters. When it used to be the main boulevard, it was the center of Denver. And then when they build the interstate, it was gone. Now it’s a dilapidated stripe and no matter what developers try to do with it or how bureaucrats try to change it into an attractive area, it still has that level of seediness. From the richest person in Denver walking past a student walking past a guy asking for change in front of a liquor store, it all happens at once.

How many books are you making?
50 total. 30 for the show. It takes awhile.

What about the Last Analog portion of the show?
I had this idea in Chicago about the last analog television broadcast. I did a bunch of woodblock and rubber stamp prints of analog devices — like it’s the analogue apocalypse. I did a nine-minute stop-action animation film that we’re showing during the event.

More information on the event:
http://cmousefasano.com/

Listen digitally:
http://charlythecitymousefasano.bandcamp.com/

Fingers Of The Sun: Under The Influence With No Apologies

2011-02-09T20:27:00.000-08:00

By Josiah M Hesse

Well the old world may be dead
Our parents can't understand
But I still love my parents
And I still love the old world
I want to keep my place in the old world
Keep my place in the arcane
Because I still love my parents
And I still love the old world

--Jonathan Richman

“There's an old rule in rock and roll, that if your parents like it, it can't be any good,” Paul McCartney tells me as a waitress hands us our drinks in a Denver bar. “And we've ignored that. We're playing the music that we want to play. We're not out to just piss people off.”

Okay, okay, it's not really Paul McCartney telling me this.

But if you saw him you'd forgive me for thinking so.

The man sitting across from me in this booth is the pure doppleganger of 1967 McCartney; complete with slug mustache, psychedelic tie and shaggy brown hair with trimmed sideburns — you'd swear he just fell out of the video for “Penny Lane.” But this is 2011 and the man's name is Nathan Brasil. He is currently surrounded by his bandmates, who collectively make up Fingers Of The Sun, the band that has been (begrudgingly) labeled Denver's sixties revivalist troubadours, carrying on that great tradition of eulogizing an era they never lived in. The time of mini-skirts, acid, and music with a distinct romanticism.

“A lot of bands in this city are afraid of not being original,” says Suzie Allegra, the other half of the Fingers Of The Sun songwriting team. “They don't want to admit that they're taking something from someone else, or not coming out with the new happening sound. And we've had that fear, but we've overcome it.”

The bar we're having this conversation in contains a few of those Denver bands. They sit in tight jeans, warming their hands after their fixed gear bike ride down here, probably listening to a Sonic Youth cassette on a Walkman, celebrating finishing an albums worth of one-minute noise songs on a Mac laptop. It's difficult to see where Fingers Of The Sun fit in with a city like this; when I ask if the Denver scene has any influence on their music they all say no, that they could make their music anywhere, some referencing Portland or Austin. It seems that, unlike those aforementioned cities, Denver's underground music scene has yet to find it's own distinct sound and culture. And in this insecurity many musicians will lazily drift into the abrasive, unromantic sounds of the avant-guard. Hiding in cynicism, masking inability with experimentation, a lot of musicians in this Colorado town deliberately avoid all of the things that make up Fingers Of The Sun.

“When I lived in Portland there were a lot of poppy bands,” Nathan explains, ordering another round for everyone at the table, “there were a lot of bands just playing nice music because that's what they wanted to do. A lot of Denver bands are riff based, and we're not. Most of them will come up with a cool riff, then put some stuff on it, then the singer will come in and just say something. But Suzie and I will have a chord progression. We like to have a melody over a rhythmic structure.”

“There's a real stigma in this town against being in a poppy band,” Suzie agrees.

Though it doesn't seem like Fingers Of The Sun are enemies with any of the riff-based bands that fill this bar. They play the same venues and have compliments for all of them, but this group of hippies four generations removed don't really fit. Not only does their sound harken back to a very un-punk era, but the songs leave you with an optimistic sense of the future. Their upcoming self-title debut (available Feb 12th) is the kind of music that could be used as therapy for Seasonal Affected Disorder, tunes with a vaseline around the lens type of romanticism, something that can rescue you after your family mocks your haircut at Thanksgiving Dinner.

On the jukebox of this bar The Modern Lovers “Old World” comes on. Jonathan Richman's song about not fitting in with a scene that hates its parent's generation is an eerily poignant commentary on Fingers Of The Sun's place in this bar and this city. Whether it is conscious or not, the band have taken the same route that Richman did with his entire career. Being unwillingly thrust into the role of punk-rock icon, Richman rebelled against the scene that had no use for his old world; his rebellion was in direct contrast to theirs, by using a drug-free cheeriness and love for his parents, Richman out-punked the punks. And whether it's conscious or not, Fingers Of The Sun are using the same tactics, embracing imitation and cleanly structured songs in opposition to the sounds of their contemporaries. After all, when you're a band in a city like Denver, whose underground music scene has pigeonholed itself into demanding a lip-curling sneer and ear splitting feedback as a prerequisite for cultural acceptance, the only route left for insubordination is to make music with a commercial sound.

“I'm definitely living out a lot of fantasies in this band,” Suzie tells me. And if there is one consistent thread throughout my conversation with her and Nathan, it's that there were a lot of things they weren't allowed to do in other bands, and that now the flood-gates are open. You want to have each band dress up as their favorite planet, collectively making up the solar system? Sure. You want to write ridiculously accessible, happy songs about thrift stores and cups of tea? Why not?

Having met years earlier, back when “Fingers Of The Sun” was just the name of a 1968 song by The Fugs, Nathan and Suzie had been in two different bands together before they formed this one. Their second, The Pseudo Dates, gained a significant group of fans in Denver and while they did have a decidedly trippy sound, Nathan proudly states that Fingers is “the most unapologetically sixties band I've ever been in.” The Psuedo Dates broke up unexpectedly in the spring of '09, but at the time it was still clear to Nathan and Suzie that they had uncommon songwriting chemistry. Continuing along the path of the Pseudo Dates, the pair began writing some even more unapologetically sixties music. Like most Denver musicians, each of them were in several other bands at the same time; Marcus (the snail) Renninger was plucked from his and Nathan's David Bowie cover band, Width Of A Circle, and recruited as Fingers second guitarist. Despite never being in a band before, Jamie Bryant, a petite olive skinned cutie, was hired on to play organ. Fez Garcia, a slim, hairy man with the look of an A-list 70s porn star, was brought in on drums, and the blindingly (yet not obnoxiously) cheery Megan Wilson was found, miraculously, on craigslist as the fourth vocalist and percussionist.

Collectively the band pulled from a deep pool of talent and creativity, writing songs that display each member's incendiary ability, yet never do they distract you from the songs with any kind of impressive instrumentation. Marcus and Nathan's dueling guitars contain a heartbreaking reminiscence of early Love records; Fez's drums at times seem dangerously sloppy, yet they hold the glue of the music together and add a subtle personality to each song; Maria's organ is minimal yet expansive, like the undertow of Al Kooper's contribution to those great mid-sixties Dylan hits; Megan's voice is strong but never arresting, delivering an opiate shot of mushy, sweet-tempered harmony right into the darkest of hearts. And Suzie is the foundation of it all, keeping those weighty yet polished songs together with simple bass playing, lacquering it all with a voice that is at times so confident and projecting it can make you squint.

Being together less than a year, Fingers Of The Sun have garnered an impressive following. Fans will come out to their shows, singing along to each song (despite the fact that they have yet to release an album). “Sometimes there are people at the shows in black hoodies that look like they never would be into what we're doing,” Suzie explains, “and they're the ones who are most into it.”

I've eves dropped on a few conversations about Fingers Of The Sun; those Denverites in black hoodies who typically only listen to cassette copies of Metal Machine Music or something by The Raincoats. And they are “into it.” They love the music of Fingers Of The Sun. But typically these statements of praise are suffixed with an apology. Just like no one will consciously admit to liking a U2 or Bruce Springsteen song without dismissing it as a “guilty pleasure,” they hang their heads in shame for liking Fingers Of The Sun and will subtly ask for your forgiveness. “I like them,” someone will say “but I don't think you will. They're just too...happy. And they sound like a band from the sixties.”

Similarly, critics will dismiss them for being too derivative. Their album received a glowing review in The Westword, but in Robert Flemming's local zine, The Pink Shovel he refers to them as “a very fun, proto-sixties garage band who excel in their musicianship so much you'd swear it was a different band on each song. But in the end they are too indebted to their sixties influences, to the point where they will be seen as a tie-die equivalent to The Darkness. In the end they are a very talented group of kids who've simply shown up to the party forty years too late.”

“It's a lot cooler to be an eighties band than it is a sixties band,” Nathan says.

Is there any decade in American history more often mimicked than the sixties? In a 1996 essay, hippie novelist Tom Robbins offers sympathy for those (like Fingers Of The Sun) who were born too late to experience our nations pop renaissance: It must be really irritating to have come of age in the 1980s or 90s to find your decade — your very own historical moment—persistently overshadowed by The Decade That Will Not Die, the ten years that have stolen the show of the twentieth century and hogged the cultural limelight for as long as you can recall.

For some, the sixties evokes disgust, a frustrating indignation at the movement that created pretentious music and self-righteous politics; even Stephen King, a man who himself lived through the time, dismisses his generation as those who “could have saved the world, but instead sold their souls for the home shopping network.” But for some, the sixties are historical gold. For those of us who were born a few decades too late to have any taste of the era, what we absorb through documentaries, albums and Time-Life retrospective coffee-table books creates a sense of longing, like the middle aged married man sighing at the sight of a mini-skirted college girl laughing at the bar. We are dissatisfied with our own time and want to leap into the photograph of Golden Gate Park, or to just stand in the back of the UFO club as Syd Barrett plays that deliciously frightening music. And romantic authors like Tom Robbins do little to help our generational blue-balls, describing his youth as a time when “music was less superficial, authority less respected, violence less tolerated, wealth less worshiped; beauty had yet to be voted out of office by the art community, flirting hadn't been demonized as sexual harassment by the cops of correctness, and tickets to any number of nirvanas could be easily obtained at any number of outlets, ancient or futuristic.”

Grace Slick is known for a lot of things (sleeping with every member of her band, trying to spike Nixon's tea with acid, drunkenly heckling a German audience about WWII), but her most enduring legacy is coining the phrase “if you remember the sixties, you probably weren't there.” And it seems like every generation since hers has been trying to remember the sixties for her.

There have probably been more sixties revivalist bands than there were actual sixties bands. Which is surprising, considering that only a few years after the murder at Altamont Speedway (historically known as The End Of The Sixties), the punk movement inspired a hatred of hippies with all the fever of ethnic cleansing. Punks hated hippies the way tea-baggers hate Obama. They saw them as hypocritical losers with all the conviction of a limp handshake. The Clash's “Hate & War” was written as a direct confrontation to the sixties slogan of Peace & Love; and journalists had so much fun with Johnny Rotten's “I Hate” slogan scribbled above the logo of his Pink Floyd t-shirt.

But around this same time The Television Personalities released their first album, And Don't The Kids Just Love It, featuring a cover with pictures of Twiggy and Avengers star, Patrick McNee, and songs with titles like “I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives.” The Television Personalities (like Fingers Of The Sun) were unapologetically sixties influenced, at a time when nothing could be farther from cool. But while their brazenness may not have earned them many record sales or appreciation from anyone but DJ John Peel and pop history nerds, they did have an impact on a burgeoning California music scene, looking to reclaim their roots of sunshine drenched pretty pop.

By the mid-1980s the LA punk movement had abandoned any sense of melody that may have come from predecessors like The Ramones and The Buzzcocks, and stripped everything down to a primal rhythm, leading many adolescent males to punch their way through the crowd with an amphetamine mania. Many bands in the city felt little kinship with this scene and, following the tactics of Jonathan Richman a decade earlier, began embracing pop sounds that were like garlic to the vampiric punks of California. Known to history as The Paisley Underground, bands like The Three O' Clock and Rain Parade had more in common with The Byrds than they did with Minor Threat, and began plucking their way through happy, jangly tunes with no hint of apology. Wearing frilly collars inside a crush velvet suit, recording videos on sets seemingly stolen from The Smothers Brothers show, bands in The Paisley Underground were in love with the sights and sounds of a time when they were most likely in diapers. At the same time legitimate sixties bands like The Grateful Dead and The Rolling Stones were trying to modernize their image, wanting to look as eighties as possible in day-glow suits and laser light concerts. The scene reached its zenith when pop royalty, Prince, formed Paisley Park Records, signing The Bangles and The Three O'Clock and recording his own album of trippy throwback music, Around The World In A Day.

And in the nineties the trend continued. Traces of Neil Young can be found throughout the grunge movement, with their long hair & flannel uniform, and Cobain's quotation from Young's “Hey Hey, My My” in his suicide note. (Though in another infamous piece writing by the messiah of the flannel army, Cobain said, “the only way I would wear a tie-die shirt is if it was made with Jerry Garcia's blood and Iggy Pop's piss.”) Across the pond Rock & Roll Stars Oasis brazenly stole from sixties music as if they owned the copyrights to the whole decade — all while blasphemously claiming they were “better than The Beatles.” In the Ondi Timoner documentary, “DiG,” west coast hipsters The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre battle it out to see who is the most relevant band to their generation, all while sounding like they're playing for a bunch of dancing zombies at a Merry Prankster Acid Test.

And there is no shortage of sixties inspired bands today. Thee Oh Sees, Best Coast, Ty Segal and Tame Impalla all owe a significant debt to the garage pop of 1960's Detroit. Though these groups have been afforded punk-rock credibility by recording music that is washed-out by a thick filter of Lo-Fi grittiness.

Fingers Of The Sun have no such filters. Their music is as clear and accessible as an LP by The Mama's & The Papas. While the album was recorded with modern technology and instruments, the sound is seriously indebted to Phil Spector and Brian Wilson. Titles like “Heaven Only Knows” and “Goodbye Summer” are clear signposts to the vocabulary of The Beach Boys; “Cup Of Tea” is a slightly slowed down version of The Hollies “Bus Stop,” continuing with the theme of flirtation and community cool; “The Leaves Were So Green” could be a Rubber Soul-era B Side; and “Dinner & A Movie” is clearly a Shangri-La's song without the monologues.

And yet, when you hear these songs you can't help but be floored by the pleasure of them. They are expertly crafted and recorded songs, pushing all the right buttons in your mind and heart. Songs like “Cashmere, Paisley, Polyester” and “Mystery Remains” speak with a clarity of vision you wish you saw more often from Denver bands. Even the most ignorant philistine could hear the sixties in every second of Fingers Of The Sun's album, but never does it feel like a deal-breaker. There is enough talent and passion in there to drive the songs into the present.

Not all of the members of Fingers Of The Sun have the same sense of Carnaby Street fashion as Nathan Brasil. Megan comes close, in short dress with maracas in hand she could be the little sister of Michelle Philips, while Suzie Allegra is pure Portland Punk, with tattoos and labret piercing, she's like a mix of Kim Deal and Zia McCabe. Marcus Renninger's look is probably the most unique of the band, unable to pin him down to any cultural stereotype, his dress is at times tragic but always distinct. If you took Nathan out of the equation, a picture of Fingers Of The Sun would look simply like any other hipster band.

“There are a lot of bands who are, like, totally retro-sixties pop,” Suzie explains, “and we're not really like that. I feel like it would be a lie if I told people we were and then they came out to our shows expecting to see something like that.” And for anyone who has heard their music this is somewhat exasperating: Fingers Of The Sun are probably more heavily drenched in the music of the 1960s than anyone listed in the history lesson above. Nathan somewhat disagrees with Suzie, stating that he will sometimes tell inquirers of his band that they are pretty sixties sounding, but he understands why Suzie would be apprehensive to label them that way. “Musician's never want to be pigeonholed into something,” he says.

When the question of influences comes up everyone at the table has something to say. They have no shortage of bands to list that have inspired their music, but not one of them mentions a single band from 1964-72. Jaimie is into Cat Power and Beach House, Marcus likes late 70s bands like Wire and Richard Hell, Suzie lists categories like Space Rock and Shoe-gaze. Even Nathan, the band's resident Mod, only brings up K Records bands like The Beat Happening, and jazz records by Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington. When I bring up Love or The Mama's & The Papas, they will nod their heads and say, “yeah, we like them too,” but never take it further than that. It is clear that the members of Fingers Of The Sun do not want to be portrayed as a sixties revivalist band...which means they are probably at least a little annoyed at being featured in an essay about sixties revivalist bands.

“Sometimes I worry that I'm ripping off a melody,” Nathan says, admitting that their music is indebted to several other bands, “but I don't subscribe to the idea of pure inspiration 100 percent of the time.” And he defends his band's borrowing from flower children culture, by explaining that the icons of the sixties were stealing from their grandparents playbook just as much as anyone today. “A lot of Paul McCartney's music could be traced back to the thirties. And at the time everyone was wearing antique clothes from the 1890s, drawing posters like Aubrey Beardsley and wearing haircuts from the twenties. That skinny, flat chested look had come back, which was totally from the twenties.”

Nathan has a point.

Every societal movement has been at least partially indebted to the generation before them. Without The Pixies there would be no Nirvana, etc. But there's no denying that in the years 1964-72 there was an oil reserve of magic tapped into by the music makers of that time. And it could be argued that it was much too heady an elixir for them to handle, all of them playing with a fire they couldn't understand or control. Screaming girls, crying and scratching their faces; the sleepless months of amphetamines, recording several albums inside a year; the mania building up to violence, overdoses and ideologies that crumble like rotten cake. Perhaps it's taken all these decades for one generation to sift through the ash and pluck out the diamonds that still remain, only now able to touch the great monolith without being destroyed by it.

And if that's true, then Fingers Of The Sun are perhaps the only Denver band with the courage to face that challenge down. In Suzie's song “The Sailor” she sings about being, “stranded between painters painting each other,” which sounds like the perfect metaphor for the Denver underground music scene. Bands that are afraid to look outside themselves for inspiration. It is obvious why Fingers Of The Sun would rather not be seen as a sixties revivalist band, such a designation pigeonholes them into being simple theater, like Civil War reenactors or Renaissance Fair jesters. But either way they are music nerds and are highly indebted to their influences, and they are also unafraid to write happy songs their parents (probably) enjoy, all in a city where if the music isn't steeped in an ear-drum splitting riff, then it just isn't worth a damn.

A week after my conversation with Fingers Of The Sun, they headlined a show at The Gothic, a Denver mega-venue that typically hosts sold-out shows by Coco Rosie or The Dandy Warhols. It was a Hot Congress Records showcase, highlighting the labels best bands. Fingers were probably the youngest band on the bill, and yet they were the headliners, bringing the sparse crowd collectively to the front to dance and sing along to songs most of the kids in the black hoodies knew by heart. A few acts before them, The Kissing Party performed equally cute songs with a delicate, early Marianne Faithful-type singer. The Kissing Party have been around for a few years, establishing themselves at shows all over town. And yet they eked through their songs, seemingly embarrassed by their own sound. Their set was like one long apology, begging forgiveness for making the audience suffer through it. It was like watching a high school freshman at his first slam-poetry night.

But when Fingers Of The Sun came on stage they projected a confidence unseen by any other band that night. There was no self-conscious posturing, no second guessing the worth of their songs. No desire to try and convince you of what and who they were. The band and the audience all disappeared inside those songs, forgetting where (and when) they were; no trace of the ideology that any art worth liking needed to be 100 percent self-inspired. Suzie and Nathan are finally living out the fantasies that so many other bands they were in denied them. Playing music that owes more than a little debt to their grandparents radio stations.

The Great Debate: Meat Versus Vegetarianism

2011-01-21T14:59:00.000-08:00

By Brian Polk and Abe Brennan

Abe is the singer of my band, Joy Subtraction. He practices the Meat Man Diet (popularly known as the Cave Man Diet, Paleo Diet, and Grunting Shit-tossing Diet). I am a vegetarian (popularly known as the I Can’t Eat That Diet, Sickly Looking Pale Diet, and Is a Veggie Burger All You Have Diet). We’re both extremely self-righteous and just plain mean to each other regarding our choices of what we eat. What follows is an exchange about our diets that occurred over the internet.

Brian: Remember when we were talking about cancer and its link to diet? Here are the leading causes of death in America:
Number of deaths for leading causes of death:

· Heart disease: 616,067
· Cancer: 562,875
· Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 135,952
· Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 127,92

As you can see, the number one cause is heart disease, which usually comes from clogged arteries, which of course comes from high cholesterol intake, which of course comes from meat and dairy products (since cholesterol is ONLY found in animal products and not from vegetables or vegetable oils). So basically, when all that meat rotting in your colon eventually gives you cancer and clogs your arteries, you can switch to a vegetarian diet in order to extend the life of your meaty body for a few years. Let me know when that happens and we'll do lunch.

Abe: Regarding cancer and its causes: I don't eat dairy products, so there's that. I also only eat lean meats. Responsibly raised lean meats devoid of the hormone treatments and other chemical tinkering that has resulted in our bloated, breathless populace. The rest of my diet consists of fresh fruit and vegetables, some items you may be familiar with. The other thing, and I hate to be the one to break it to you, is that soy causes cancer and Alzheimer's. It's the biggest cover-up in American history, way beyond Roswell or the Kennedy assassination. In 1954, Richard Nixon, when vice president under Eisenhower, headed up a secret cabal that funded soy promotion and production as a long-term plan to kill liberals in as slow, painful, degrading, and confusing a way as possible. So enjoy, soy boy! Way to play right into the right wing's hands. Have fun with your dementia.

Brian: Oh poor Abe. Apparently the lean meat rotting in your intestines has backed up so far that it is now rotting away your brain. You mention that soy (a food I eat in moderation) gives you cancer (rather than protecting you from it) and causes Alzheimer’s (another lie perpetuated by the beef industry). Do you not remember CO-INTEL-BRO, the Reagan-era program designed to transform otherwise compassionate liberals into mouth-frothing, knuckle-dragging meat-heads? It was actually Alexander Haig’s idea (it obviously wasn't Reagan’s, a man who couldn't even hold his own wiener while peeing). “I am in control here,” Haig famously liked to say. Less famously, he also said, “And because I’m in control, we have to find a way to force-feed meat to these pinko-hippies... [I]f we fail in this endeavor, generations of free spirits will be eating tofu off of each other’s naked, pristine bodies as they commence communal orgies in the middle of our nation’s national forests. A good steak will force these soy-munchers into joyless, monogamous missionary positions in no time. Then we’ll start another secret war in Central America somewhere. Who wants bacon?” As you can see, you should probably do some more research.

Abe: Alex Haig was a puppet. Everyone (who isn’t an idiot) knows Caspar Weinberger, James Baker, and Ed Meese were the real power brokers — they picked on Haig all the time: knocked files out of his hands when he was walking down West Wing halls; made fart noises while he delivered briefings at cabinet meetings; formed a naked circle around him in the White House showers and shoved him back and forth until he cried (I imagine you know the feeling). CO-INTEL-BRO was a disinformation campaign that Meese instigated, and it was Weinberger who suggested linking Haig to the “program” and using him as a patsy. Meanwhile, Baker spearheaded the “scheme within a scheme” that became known as the Iran-Contra scandal. Guns for Iranians and cash for Central American guerillas were a smokescreen for the truly sinister aims of the plot: the introduction of cancer-laced soy and Ebola bean sprouts into food co-ops and health food markets around the United States. These disease strains were genetically designed to manifest in second and third generations, so it’s probably a good thing you and Vanessa have no plans to reproduce. I, on the other hand, by strictly eating lean meats, fruits, and vegetables, am merely following millions of years of evolutionary protocols. So put that in your bong and smoke it.

Brian: First of all, I have much better things to smoke that this drivel. Second, your theory of the Iran-Contra scandal is laughable by any interpretation of history. Reagan hated the Sandinistas because of their penchant for tofu. In fact before he began funding the Contras, he famously asked Daniel Ortega, “Where’s the beef?” Third, you’re playing into the hands of the right wing, man. Bush the Younger’s tax breaks—that is, the larger the waistband, the larger the cut (or “Operation Morbid Obesity” as he liked to call it)—benefited the meat and dairy industries for the great fattening of America. You’re not following millions of years of evolutionary protocol, you’re gorging yourself on the carcasses of a morally bankrupt industry. So put that in your colon and rot it.

Vegan Definition

Paleo Diet Wiki Page

veg • an

2011-01-21T14:56:00.000-08:00

[n. vej-uhn or esp. British vee-guhn; v. vej-uhn]

By Abe Brennan

—noun
1. a strict vegetarian who consumes no animal or dairy products; a person who refrains from using any animal product whatever for food, clothing, or any other purpose.

2. a miserable person.

3. a dietary practice first adopted by twelfth-century European serfs because life didn’t suck hard enough for them back then. The clergymen and knights—with turkey drumsticks clutched in fat hands, mouths full of meat, grease dribbling down their chins—had a good laugh when one of them recounted seeing a couple of vegan peasants fighting over a rutabaga on the Yorkshire high road.

4. a communist, socialist, anarchist or other non-capitalist, non-God-fearing enemy of the United States of America and her business interests. The congregation was dismayed when the vegan snatched the Bible from the pastor, ripped it to shreds, and defecated on the remains while tearing a twenty-dollar bill in half and reciting the Communist Manifesto.

—verb (used with or without object)
1. to inundate a person (or group of people) with guilt. Eat dinner with Brian and Vanessa? Yeah, if I’m dying for a grade-A veganning all night. I may as well hang out at a mega-church wearing a “Got Abortion?” T-shirt.

2. to hector, annoy. She veganned me until I had to punch her in the face.

Trivia: The word is sometimes pronounced “veh jen” with a soft “g,” which sounds even dumber than the way people normally pronounce it.

The Paleolithic Diet

2011-01-21T14:54:00.000-08:00

According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

By Brian Polk

The Paleolithic Diet, also popularly referred to as the “caveman diet” or the “preferred cuisine of the macho macho man,” is a nutritional plan based on the notion that optimal human health is achieved by consuming the animal flesh that practitioners of the diet imagine their pre-agricultural, hunter/gatherer ancestors might have eaten if they had access to grocery stores where free-range meats were sold.

History
The diet originated in the 1970s as a backlash to the rise of 1960s vegetarianism. Since it was popularized by Dick “Professor Sausage” Ater, who wrote the 1972 book, Meat: Transforming Your Diet so You Don’t Feel Like Such an Emasculated Pussy all the Time, the Paleolithic Diet has grown in popularity among duders who attempt make up for their sexual frustration by perpetuating violence toward animals that they would never have the balls to hunt in the wild. Today scientists estimate that over 10,000 manly men — who have been psychologically castrated by their wives — practice the diet.

Festivals
The Formation of Unified Carnivorous Knockwurst Eating Rabble-rousers organizes Paleolithic-themed cookouts on a bi-annual basis, with festivities occurring throughout the United States and Great Britain. Although specific observance differs according to region, the FUCKER Festivals generally include the following events: (1) Cow Shit Smear Welcome Hour, in which participants disrobe, smear cow shit on their faces, and howl incoherently at various pagan gods. (2) Territory Marking Contest, where contestants piss on one another in order to protect the territory of their meat. (3) Meat Deep Throat Extravaganza, which, surprisingly does not include blowjobs. (4) Blow Job Meet and Greet, which does. (5) Nap Time, which is pretty self-explanatory. And (6) Goodbyes and Man Cries, where everyone gets hugs and kisses and cries a little.

Controversy
In 2006, Dick Ater died minutes after trying to pass an entire cow through his colon. Critics of the diet quickly capitalized on Ater’s death by pointing out the obvious connection to consuming an over-abundance of meat and dying from trying to shit it out. Ater’s wife, Anita Ater, vehemently denied any connection all the way up until her own death in 2009, when her attempt to crap out a flock of chickens took a fatal turn. The remaining Ater children, two of which have become steadfast vegans, declined to comment on their parents’ respective deaths or the absolute messes their corpses made of the master bathroom.

The “Free-Range” “Secret”
While most adherents of the Cave Man Meat-Fest claim to eat free-range meat, this is only something they say to get vegans and vegetarians to shut up while they gnaw on the salted remains of factory-farmed pig intestines.

Scratching the Surface: Why I’m still playing in punk bands after all these years

2011-01-21T14:52:00.000-08:00

By Brian Polk

· I don’t like it when more than four paying customers show up to watch my band play.

· I’m still impressed by the punk credo: “Learn another chord, start another band.”

· When old friends ask me what I’m doing with my life, I don’t have to come up with anything new to say.

· By playing in two different bands—and subsequently saturating the market by ignoring the concept of supply and demand—I’m staying true to my anti-capitalist roots. (Never making more than $20 a gig also contributes to this end.)

· Since I never bothered learning to play guitar solos, I’m totally against them.

· I accepted a long time ago that “making it” on any kind of level isn’t going to happen, so I might as well play good music.

· Since no one else plays punk anymore, I like to think of myself as unique.

· If I don’t demonstrate that the 20-minute set is not only attainable, but desirable, opening bands might get the idea that it’s okay to go on for an hour.

· I’ve been to shows where the audience just stood around and “appreciated” the band. I couldn’t believe how lame this was.

· I don’t ever want to have too much in common with my parents.

· I never sold out (mainly because no one ever offered me anything to sell out to, but it’s still an accomplishment nonetheless).

· Even though punk is unpopular and everything, it’s still more relevant than anything the hipsters have come up with.

· Since most punks I know are either married, twice divorced, or otherwise undateable, we don’t have to care that punk isn’t attractive to members of the opposite sex.

· Since I’ve amassed an embarrassing amount of knowledge about a single genre of music, I might as well stick with what I know.

· I need something to show for my unyielding commitment to bitterness.

· Yelling out of key doesn’t go well with alt-country, electro, or valium rock, and I’m okay with that.

· Punk is the only music that sounds good through the deafening roar of my tinnitus.

Review: Lion Sized / Accordion Crimes split 7”

2011-01-21T14:50:00.001-08:00

In order for traditional 7-inches to work, they have to be really good. That’s because the tiny records require more participation from the listener — instead of flipping the record after five or six songs as you would with an LP, you have to change sides after one song. Consequently, the two songs on the two sides better fucking blow you out of the water if the record has a shot at not getting filed away with the other lesser seven-inches that only graced the turntable once. Fortunately for this split 7-inch, Accordion Crimes and Lion Sized arrange two captivating — and complementing — songs that prevent the single from entering the nether regions of your record collection.

Lion Sized: “Three Bed / Two Bath”
On “Three Bed / Two Bath,” Lion Sized meld elements of Fugazi and early-Milemarker with its own interpretation of tom-pounding, bass-heavy, emotionally-charged zeal. It’s fine-tuned post-hardcore perfection, replete an intricate rhythm section and vocals that aren’t so much sung as they are yelled in key.

Accordion Crimes: “Academy”
“I would kill for an original thought,” singer Brian Parker shouts over Accordion Crimes’ latest effort, “Academy.” Much darker and less melodic than a majority of the band’s previous material, the song is driven by a relentless bass and drum intensity, and adorned with lyrics that are hollered with a sense of urgency and vigor. It’s a welcomed new direction for Accordion Crimes, who continually seem content to pen songs that aren’t as easy to digest as, say, “Planes Over Milwaukee,” but are nonetheless exceptional.

Pins&needles: An interview with a zine

2011-01-21T14:35:00.000-08:00

By Brian Polk

Pins&needles could just as easily be called Mulling It All Over with the Nineties Guy, (though I must admit that its current handle is much catchier). It’s what happens when ‘90s punks still believe all the things they used to believe (like zines and records are the pinnacle of punk print and audio), only now they have to do things like work and pay a mortgage. Its author manages to keep a sense of humor about himself while contemplating the finer points of life, like "Seinfeld," sports radio, crappy record stores, dogs, and various existential crises. His prose is engaging, humorous, and above all, relatable, which is the ultimate goal of any good zine. And as a fellow zinester, it’s always nice to know that there are others who, despite all the advantages of going digital, still bend over backwards to create something that can be read in the tub. As you can see below, The Yellow Rake was so impressed with Pins&needles that the zines felt compelled to exchange a few words…

The Yellow Rake: Why would you even think of starting a zine now? Haven't you heard of blogs?
Pins&needles: Two reasons: (1) I am an album guy not a digital download-type guy. I love the whole package, so a print zine makes sense to me. (2) I don’t ever want to be referred to as a “Blogger.”

What do you want people to take away from your zine?
Plain and simple: to be entertained. Pins&needles is more of a sitcom than it is a film. There’s nothing overly deep or controversial, but hopefully there’s a little something for everyone. The best thing that I take away from it is when people relate to some of my neuroses and share theirs with me.

I think every zinester has been the recipient of unflattering criticism from Maximum Rock 'N' Roll. What did you think of yours?
In short, it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. The reviewer did comment that Pins&needles is really “Just some guy musing on life,” which I believe they meant as an insult but I loved it and used it for the homepage of my website. On the cover of this particular issue of MRR there’s a guy wearing a “New Order Fact. 50 1981 Movement” shirt. I’m either not punk enough or not intelligent enough to understand what that means—or both, which is why I expected a worse review.

Which do you prefer, early Fugazi (Margin Walker, Repeater) or later Fugazi (Red Medicine, The Argument)?
This answer is not going to gain me many readers. I am actually not a fan of Fugazi’s music, but it’s certainly not for a lack of trying. The only album of theirs that I own is 13 Songs and it’s because I love the song “Waiting Room.” Because I respect Ian Mackaye immensely and I love that Fugazi had a code of ethics that could not be compromised, it truly pains me that I do not enjoy their music more than I do so about once I year I revisit their catalog to see if I “get it” yet. So far…no dice. But I have read the chapter of Our Band Could Be Your Life that is devoted to them upwards of four times if that helps at all. (I think it helps. —ed.)

www.pinsandneedleszine.com
pinsandneedleszine@gmail.com

Book Review: Character and Fitness

2010-12-12T13:02:00.000-08:00

Character and Fitness
By Jason Flores-Williams

(Review by Brian Polk)

Jason Flores-Williams has never been known for subtlety. In 2002, he clamorously announced his presence in the literary world with his third novel, The Last Stand of Mr. America — a relentless, graphic assault on the greed and crippling sexual mores of a society drowning in its own excess. Since then, Flores-Williams has focused his energy on authoring articles for The Nation, High Times, and The Brooklyn Rail, organizing protests against the Iraq war and President Bush, and more recently, graduating law school and becoming a public defender in post-Katrina New Orleans. So for the better part of the last decade, the professional provocateur has remained quiet on the literature front…

That is, until now.

Flores-Williams’ fourth novel, Character and Fitness, is, for all intents and purposes, what you might expect from a man who has dedicated much of his adult life to opposing injustice. But unlike Last Stand, it abandons the unforgiving, holding-the-mirror-up-to-society approach, centering instead on the stagnant life of Neal de la Vega, a semi-autobiographical depiction of Flores-Williams who struggles to integrate the idealism of his youth into the complexities of his adult life. Sure, a healthy distaste for inequality may be romantic — hell, even sexy — for a roustabout in his young 20s, but what does it mean for a man in his late 30s? And what do years of punk, resistance, and integrity add up to in the end? According to Neal the answer is simple: a shitty apartment in New Jersey, unemployment, and ever-dwindling career prospects. As a former-public defender, Neal paid his dues as a political activist: running from Santa Fe to Albuquerque to protest the Tiananmen Square massacre, organizing actions against the Carlyle Group in midtown Manhattan, and giving up his comfortable life in New York to stand up for his fellow man after Katrina decimated New Orleans. But now he’s broke and losing hope, living off his girlfriend in a bland apartment situated next to the massive cement parking lot of a Starbucks and Target.

Sick of spending his time in a closet that he converted into an office, where he receives rejection notices for every resume he sends out, Neal considers temp work, but quickly reconsiders when the temp agency can only offer him a job at Schmidt and Sandler — a law firm that recently slashed its employee pensions so management could walk away with millions. After bickering with Rachel — a common occurrence brought on by the burden of Neal’s unemployment — he finally gets some good news: he’s invited to an interview at the Civil Rights Guild in Washington D.C. where he would be given the opportunity to defend everything he holds dear: equal protection and the first and fourteenth amendments. But after a shaky interview, he receives yet another rejection notice, which inspires him to do what dejected people often do: get as drunk as possible. And that’s where fate steps in.

Before he went to D.C. for the ill-fated interview, he ran into his friend from law school, Chris Majerus, who invited him to a rooftop party full of affluent attorneys from New York City. It’s at this party where, between whiskey shots and lines of cocaine, Majerus promises to arrange an interview for Neal at Goldstein and Locke, a prestigious law firm in Manhattan that defends the rights of corporations to pollute the environment, unfairly exploit the workforce, and generally abuse the system. When Neal procures a job offer, he finds that despite being a corporate tool, the career doesn’t come without its allure: starting salary is 230 thousand a year — an income that would effectively end his poverty, restore his dignity, and allow him to live in a nice apartment with Rachel on Tompkins Square Park. But Rachel doesn’t want him to take the job, which — when coupled with his friend Nancy, a young activist who he and Rachel befriend that constantly reminds him of the idealism of his youth — should be enough of an incentive to turn down the job. But Neal is supposed to be the breadwinner. Why should he continue to wallow in the self-pity of his unemployment for some abstract concept of morality?

In biting prose that’s humorous and poignant, Flores-Williams explores whether or not the good fight is eternal. And while it’s obvious that the struggle takes on a different form in an activist's late thirties — especially in contrast to his twenties — the author questions the point of this self-imposed suffering when the money is there for the taking. After all, if someone like Neal doesn’t take it, someone else will. And that’s just it: the system will continue to thrive whether the idealists of the world decide to become a part of it or not. So what’s the point? Resistance is futile, right?

Right?

Character and Fitness is a masterpiece of the activist-turned-downtrodden, a note of praise to the former radical who still clings to hope and integrity in a world where hope and integrity are systematically eviscerated on a daily basis. It’s a welcome return to form for the reigning champion of protest literature. And it’s Jason Flores-Williams at his best.

-Brian Polk

Warning: I Become Much More Judgmental With This Reusable Bag in my Hand

2010-09-17T12:37:00.001-07:00

By Brian Polk

Are you going into this grocery store? Really, you are? Hmm… Oh no, it’s just that I figured if you were going to get groceries, maybe you’d bring something in which to carry them home, say a tote or reusable bag… Yeah, I know they have plastic bags in the store, but those take like a hundred years to degrade—not to mention the impact on the environment that comes from extracting and refining the petroleum necessary to produce such foul devices. I mean everyone talks about the importance of weaning ourselves off of foreign oil, and yet no one’s really willing to alter their lifestyle in anyway to really combat the problem, are they?

…Oh you forgot your bags at home, did you? Well isn’t that just fucking fantastic? Thanks to your egregious absentmindedness, the whole world has to suffer, doesn’t it? You’re arrogance is overwhelming, ma’am. How could you possibly think it’s hunky-dory to punish the earth as a result of your gross negligence?

…Not that big of a deal? How could you possibly say that? It’s a huge deal. A huge fucking deal. A huge fucking, ass deal. We’re talking about the earth here. THE EARTH! Your well-being. The future, the present, the past. And here you stand in front of a grocery store with the full intention of committing an enormous transgression against the whole of humanity. You, ma’am, make me as sick as a hangover after a night of whiskey and whippits. I want to vomit upon your white shoes. No, scratch that. I want you to take your plastic bags with a week’s worth of groceries and puke in them so that all your food is ruined. RUINED I TELL YOU! RUINED! A HA HA HA HA!

…Hey, don’t shake your head and walk away from me. You’re walking away from the truth! …Damn, how will I ever convince anyone to reuse bags when they all walk away from me? Oh well. Maybe next time I’ll ride my bike with my bag so that I can judge everyone on two fronts. That’ll show ‘em.

Job Seeker

2010-09-17T12:36:00.001-07:00

By Charles Fasano

The bar around the corner from his house is open at 7:30 am on week days.

He says he can handle his booze because he doesn't smell like booze.

The only problem he has with drinking is getting the liquor in his mouth.

He must have the drunkest neck ties in Denver.

His wife thinks he is looking for work.

He got fired because a pat on the back became sexual harassment.

Everyone's buddy at the bar but nobody knows his name.

Re-inventing the high five.

Spending all his lunch money.

Clumsy with a tumbler; reckless with ice cubes.

He can use a stir straw as a weapon if he closes one eye.

He has a job interview at 9am.

Wearing his best suit.

Three shots down to chill the nerves.

And now, a message from our sponsor...

2010-09-17T12:33:00.000-07:00

By Brian Polk (text, concept), Vincent Cheap (woman image), and Drew Smith (lay-out)

Hiding From Success With Walter Chaw

2010-09-17T12:27:00.000-07:00

by Josiah M Hesse

Movies have always had a hard time being respected as a worthwhile art form.

Seriously. Take a look at the man spending all day in a theater, or on his living room couch, watching six straight hours of cinema; then place him next to the man spending that time reading books in the library, or wandering through an art gallery. Who is more respected in the eyes of society? Just behind fashion and athletics, movies are the most commercial and least regarded of all forms of human expression. It is seen as a dullards’ medium — each theater dismissed as a church of American idiocy, where drones spend small fortunes to have their brains ground to oatmeal by romantic comedies. We’re told that too many movies will dull the mind and marginalize the soul — the dark refuge of the lazy and the useless.

And yet all over the world there are obsessive fans who devote their waking hours to ingesting as many films as possible; not film critics or historians, just lovers of the moving picture. None will ever achieve any reasonable respect from his or her peers. Partly because they are unemployed sociopaths whose wet dreams are always in black and white, but also because their drug of choice is not in societal fashion. And the film geeks who spend 3/4 their lives in school learning about Kurosawa’s childhood or the obvious meaning of a mirror in a film will have just as much trouble being seen as a serious person making a contribution to society. And their attempts to communicate their passion will be equally tragic.

Though at Denver’s Central Library there is a small, undiscovered refuge for cinephiles each Tuesday night at 6 p.m. It’s a small oasis of earnest intellectuals, not looking to receive a degree or be revered as a person of cultural substance, but merely out to have their senses stirred and their minds challenged. And the great shaman of this trip is local author and film historian Walter Chaw.

Chaw’s social and academic credibility could lead him to a more collegiate venue, where at least his resume would get a nice boost of cachet credibility. But here he is, guiding a crowd of retired seniors and off duty students in a discussion about social commentaries and cinematic language. All in a library basement where the only money exchanged hands is for popcorn or green tea.

His presentation each night is the same as any cinematic emcee. There’s a twenty minute, spoiler-free introduction giving background information on the film’s production and the state of society during its release. Then we watch the movie, all on a large screen with reasonable sound and no ticket stub required. When Chaw returns to the stage he’s prepared with a list of subjects to discuss, anything from a Catholic ban on the film, to the director’s sexual neurosis expressed through cinematography. Though typically we never get there; usually eager hands spring up in the audience within minutes — everyone desperate to express their minds in a safe space.

A space where the opinion of a movie can be as relevant as the opinion of a president.

“I love working at the library the best,” Walter Chaw tells me on the patio of a forgettable coffee shop, “because it’s interesting to get an unpretentious or unprepared response [from the audience]. In a mainstream audience people hate [critics], and in an audience of students everyone’s trying to impress you…I usually try and get some things out of the way at the beginning. Like, ‘Yes, they slept together’ or ‘No, they didn’t hate each other. Now, what did you think of the movie?’ That other stuff they can look up on Wikipedia or IMDB.”

For a film historian like Chaw, this is a pretty eccentric way of operating. Typically when a movie aficionado has a group of bodies held captive as an audience, he will demand silence from them as he ejaculates all the facts and theories of his arsenal unto their glassy faces, desperate to be recognized as a worthwhile person. But Walter Chaw rushes through this part, wanting instead to hear what the audience has to say about the film — which is, if nothing else, sincere. “I’ve been doing this a long time,” he says, “and the only pleasure I get out of it anymore is to hear what you guys have to say. I’m sick to death of what I have to say.”

A majority of the folks in the audience of one of these events has never attended a film class or written an essay on the subject (though some have — and they will let you know who they are). Most are simply fans — fans who probably watch more movies than your average citizen, but are by no means professionals. And yet Chaw craves their input. Their perspective. He sits through a film he’s probably seen multiple times (he watches 400 a year), just for the unique experience of hearing what these passionate, yet unaccredited, people have to say. He’s tired of cinema culture, where the dogma of film critique has become stale and predictable. Here we have a more pure, instinctual approach, a new set of eyes that aren’t searching for that one piece of information that will impress Walter Chaw. Or prove him wrong.

No one in the crowd will be receiving an academic certificate for participating in this event, nor will they be recognized by any social elite. Their pursuit is simply to be entertained by a good movie and have their intellect challenged by the discussion afterward. These people understand the high of learning. They pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge — not out of any social, fiscal, or academic drive.

Unfortunately, folks with this mindset are rare today, and that’s why there are usually more than a few empty rows of chairs each Tuesday night. There seems to be little use today for an event that lacks any glamour or academic credibility. Though Chaw seems alright with this; he is a man who, in the face of his dying father, began to see life in a more immediate, more existentially enlightened view. He forfeited a lucrative baseball card business to get his masters in film, bypassing the financially secure world of universities for the shaky ground of a public library. He seems to understand the unfortunate reality that, for most people, no event is worthwhile unless there is money involved. We’ve been conditioned to need that narcotic high of handing over a wad of bills, a capitalistic guarantee that we will enjoy what we are paying for.

“I think what you are talking about is best seen in the Denver Film Festival,” Chaw tells me, “which really doesn’t bring in that many good movies…But everyone wants to go to it. People get dressed up and spend about seventy-five dollars to go see some crappy movies. It’s a place to be seen.”

And unless retired pensioners, drunken sociopaths, and undersexed film geeks are the crowd you’re trying to get in with, the Films at Denver Central Library is not the place to be seen.

Though none of us are complaining.

Keeping the cinematic elite and the romantic comedy crowd out of each Tuesday Night screening is essential to sustaining that untainted synergy that blooms in each group discussion. There’s a delicate balance to all of this, something to be guarded and cherished. It’s the rare opportunity to connect with strangers on a level of sincerity that is almost extinct in this age of technology, academics, and commerce.

Readers Note: The Film Series hosted by Walter Chaw is ongoing at the Denver Public Library. For more details, go to: http://denverlibrary.org/fresh

Statistics I Just Made up

2010-09-17T12:19:00.000-07:00

By Brian Polk

95% of people know that 93% of all statistics are pulled from deep within the confines of whoever’s ass is attempting to prove whatever point he or she endorses. Despite knowing that, a full 99% of people believe such statistics if they agree with them.

4,634 people embarrassed themselves from the mispronunciation of the word “mispronunciation” in 2007—the most recent year such data is available.

18% of applause isn’t all that genuine.

47% of people are too busy to appreciate a good game of Uno every once in a while.

4% of people lie to statisticians.

Over 90% of punk songs are composed with just 3% of known guitar chords.

36% of American adult males will at some point question the sexuality of the guy they happen to be blowing at the moment.

Of the millions of comments left on internet articles each day, only 17 are intelligent, coherent, or otherwise contributive to a meaningful discussion.

3% of customers want to talk with the manager about the lack of condiment options.

75% of your roommates just ate 90% of your food.

Only 2% of Christians agree with Jesus.

19 out of 20 aggressive drunks can’t believe you just said that.

¼ of the passengers in your car really need you to stop at this next exit.

A full 97.7% of the hearing-impaired are glad they never have to listen to your new band.

50% of poll respondents think the other 50% is totally full of shit.

Checked Out: A Confederacy of Dunces

2010-09-17T12:03:00.000-07:00

Checked Out:
Items I Borrowed From the Library this Month
By Brian Polk

A Confederacy of Dunces
By John Kennedy Toole
Without hyperbole, one could easily contend that A Confederacy of Dunces is most humorous American novel ever committed to press. Its protagonist Ignatius Jacques Reilly is an unlikable oaf who is much more impressed with himself than anyone else in his twisted world could ever be of him. He’s over-educated, lazy, overweight, and content to live with his mother where he spends his time in his room writing grotesquely self-indulgent prose that he believes will one day gain him prominence and riches. Early in the novel, Ignatius is pulled into the world by an accident that forces him into a bizarre cavalcade of jobs that he must endure in order to rectify the situation. Along the way he encounters a cast of unusual characters that includes a mindful, timid office manager (Mr. Gonzalez), a senile office worker who just wants to be retired (Miss Trixie), a self-indulgent former-trophy wife who is married to Gus Levy (owner of Levy Pants) and who refuses to retire said office worker (Mrs. Levy), a ostentatious French Quarter homosexual (Dorian Greene), and a smooth-talking janitor of the seedy nightclub Night of Joy (Burma Jones). The plot intricacies, the self-obsessed characters, and the complete lunacy of the character interactions recalls a sitcom that would come to prominence nine years after the book was published. And I don’t mean to degrade the book by comparing it to Seinfeld, but if Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David didn’t consciously base the nexus of their show off of A Confederacy of Dunces, the similarities are stunning. By far the most overlooked American masterpiece, John Toole’s story of Ignatius Reilly is not only indicative of New Orleans — the city where the book is set — but also of a culture too concerned with itself to notice its own absurdity.

Validating my assertions:
Most people my age know that Seinfeld was famously a show about nothing. The publisher Simon and Schuster first rejected John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces because they said it "isn't really about anything."

Review: Makeout Point

2010-09-17T11:58:00.000-07:00

Makeout Point
Night Moves
Raccoon Tycoon Records
7-inch vinyl

Punk dies for every generation that discovers it. That’s because the lifestyle requires earnestness, vigor, and everything else that comes with being young. And that’s also why so many former punks start indie groups and mellow out with age. But then there are bands like Makeout Point that demonstrate you don’t have to turn down the rock — or distance yourself from your punk past — to craft poignant, high-energy pop songs. The group’s 7-inch, Night Moves, is an introspective corroboration of the better parts of rock and roll divided nicely into a dreamy punk side (side A) and dynamic indie side (side B). If the sludgy pop tendencies of Dinosaur Jr. had a party with the intensity of early Mission of Burma and forgot to put the gracefulness of Rilo Kiley on the guest list until the last minute, but remembered to call the detached allure of the Kim Deal-fronted songs of the Pixies a few days before, you’d have a full seven inches of party that furtively compelled ever-increasing rotations on your turn table. It’s a documentation of what happens when punks mature gracefully without denouncing everything that made punk great in the first place.

Review: Git Some

2010-09-17T11:43:00.000-07:00

Git Some
Loose Control
Alternative Tentacles
LP/CD/download

While Git Some gets all the credit it deserves for being a blistering live band, its visceral, multi-layered approach to song-craftsmanship is generally lost in the fury. The group’s second record, Loose Control, is a testament not only to the passion of its live act, but also to its capacity to write songs that are as ambitious as they are scarring. Lead singer Luke Fairchild’s presents darkly personal laments, (“How can you even call this a home when heat is a luxury / Cold surrounded by dirt / I’m having trouble staying clean”) that reflect a brutal inner-turmoil with unrelenting fervor—especially when it’s all sung/screamed with a mixture of melodic crooning and throat-taxing immediacy. Meanwhile, the band’s rhythm section drags a multitude of genres—punk, post-punk, grunge, hardcore, stoner-rock—across a variety of odd time signatures, face-melting riffs, and seismic shifts in song-structure. The album’s opener, “Cool Guys Like You Out of my Life” is a muddle of gnarled punk intensity that yields to the driving powerhouse of a follow-up, “Always the Hard Way,” a track that plays to all the group’s strengths: the pounding, tempo-transforming drumming of Andrew Lindstrom, the frenzied intricacy of guitarist Chuck French, and the potent runs of bassist Neil Keener. Loose Control is a deliberate dose of haunting, unrelenting fervor that isn’t afraid to blast through its own lamentations.

I Hope That Guy with the Minutemen Shirt Notices my Black Flag Hat

2010-05-01T12:13:00.000-07:00

By Brian Polk

Holy shit. Is that guy over there wearing a Minutemen shirt? I think he is. Yep, totally. It’s the cover of Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat — my third favorite Minutemen album after Double Nickels and Punch Line. I bet we’d have a lot to talk about if we ever met. For example, what’s his favorite Minutemen song? I could only single it down to a top-five, maybe. And even then, it’s so hard to choose. I wonder what he thinks of fIREHOSE. Personally, I never liked them as much as Minutemen, but then again, how could anyone? I guess that’s not true; I have met a few people who like fIREHOSE better for some strange reason. I’d also like to know what that guy thinks about Mike Watt playing bass in the Stooges. Did he even bother buying The Weirdness, and if he did what did he think of it?

There are just so many opinions we could go on and on about, and I’m really not sure how to approach him. Maybe he’ll see my Black Flag hat and realize I’m in the punk club. Yeah, that’s it. I always tell people my Black Flag hat is an actual flag that I raise for all the punks to see. I’ve had people come up to me in several different cities and states and ask me, “Who’s your favorite Black Flag singer?” The really cool punks always say Dez Cadena or Keith Morris. I always say Henry Rollins because my favorite albums are My War and Slip It In, though I also really like The Process of Weeding Out, which of course is the instrumental EP.

I wonder which Black Flag singer that guy likes best? He looks like he wouldn’t have a hard time admitting that Rollins was an apt front man for the band, even if he wasn’t technically as good as some of their past singers.

Where did that guy even go anyway? I saw him heading into the produce section a second ago, but he’s not here now. Oh wait. There he is in the condiment isle. Damn it, he’s standing with his back to me. Should I clear my throat to get him to notice? Maybe I should start singing a Minutemen song. “Little man with a gun in his hand…” No, that’s kind of a weird thing to do in a grocery store.

Oh wait, he’s turning around. I better act like I’m going about my business.

“Cool shirt, man,” I say to him as he walks past.

“Thanks,” he says. “I like your hat.”

“Thanks,” I say.

We both stand around awkwardly for a few moments.

“Well… see ya,” I say with a wave of my hand.

He nods and walks away.

Damn, that was awesome.

The Only Solution

2010-03-26T15:49:00.000-07:00

By Drew Smith

Another Short Story

2010-03-26T15:34:00.000-07:00

What happens when you’re in your cubicle and a strange ooze suspends your animation and you begin reminiscing about the past in a vain attempt to reconnect with some kind of meaning in your life—all while you’re supposed to be working?

By Brian Polk

It was nearing noon the first time I collapsed and lost all motivation to proceed with my life. I remember I was at the office, looking for an overdue spreadsheet when it happened. All of the sudden, the air became so thick I could hardly breathe. It was as if someone had picked up the entire office and dropped it in a giant tub of petroleum jelly. I couldn’t move or make a sound and only after a considerable struggle was I able to open my eyes.

At first I panicked. The frustration nearly reduced me to pure madness when attempts to thrash against the ooze wouldn’t relinquish the steadfast hold it had over me. The second I tried to yell, I recognized the futility in it. Even in depths of fury, my capacity for common sense reminded me sound doesn’t travel in sludge this thick.

Finally grasping the reality of the situation, I began to squirm slowly in hopes that calculated, carefully executed gyrations might have more of a freeing effect than a series of violent jolts. It seemed to work initially as I felt my desk chair wheeling backward in tiny spurts. But my elation at this prospect soon faded as soon as it became apparent that I could only move in reverse. And since I couldn’t adjust my head in order to steal a look behind me, I had no idea what else was back there frozen in this gel.

When I realized that I was powerless against it, I finally surrendered in grudging dejection to this strange suspended animation. There wasn’t much to do to occupy my time, so I figured I’d put my mind at ease and see what kind of thoughts popped into my head.

It’s always amazing what comes to mind when one loses control of his or her fate. I began to picture summers as a child when life’s only struggle was to eradicate boredom. I cherished the memories of riding bicycles, building forts, and playing football with the neighborhood kids. I thought about all the fun I had helping out my mom in the garden and planting that apple tree in the front yard, the one that never bore any fruit. I thought about my first lover, then my second and third. What were they up to these days? I wished I had stayed in touch with at least one of them. And my friends, both past and present, where were they now? I hadn’t spoken to them in such a long time. I suspect everyone was waiting for everyone else to call. Somewhere in there were my family, warm feelings of belonging, excitement about life—all of which were so alien to me now. I envisioned my theater group, performing our hearts out on the stage. I hadn’t even thought about acting in such a long time. I don’t remember why I tucked it so far beneath the surface of my everyday, automated thoughts. Acting was the only thing that freed me from the doldrums of life.

My chair continued moving backward as I contemplated my existence. It became very clear to me that there was no way to ignore this deep, profound feeling of regret that began to fry my brain like an egg on all those old anti-drug commercials. I was forced to ask myself a question that not many people ever ask themselves: Was I wasting my life?

I tried to force myself to answer this question. But how could I have answered the question? How does one go about wasting a life anyway? Isn’t the purpose of life to survive another day? In that sense, isn’t it impossible to waste a life?

These thoughts were starting to hurt my head. I remember thinking I should probably find some Aspirin. And that was the last thing I could recall.

When I slipped back into consciousness a while later, I was in an elevator going down. Two large beastlike creatures in full security guard regalia flanked me on either side. One held a box of what appeared to be my personal effects. I tried unsuccessfully to scratch an itch on my face when it suddenly occurred to me that my hands were cuffed behind my back. I cleared my throat and four icy eyes of two unfriendly faces darted in my direction. They boasted the professional discourtesy that can only come after decades of defending office buildings from all kinds of non-suit-and-tie-wearing riff-raff.

I cleared my throat again and managed the nerve to speak. “What is this?” I asked.
The two boorish guards looked at each other in disbelief, and ostentatiously rolled their eyes in front of me. Apparently I shouldn’t have been so oblivious to this situation. From the looks on their faces, they obviously assumed I was playing dumb.

“I seriously don’t know what’s going on,” I said in all honesty.

The guards looked to one another and kind of grunted, which I imagined was how they communicated. And since I wasn’t fluent in security guard grunt, I figured any further questioning on my part would be as futile as it gets.

They led me to my car in a solemn march that seemed a bit too dramatic in light of the circumstances. It was as if I were a disgraced leader of some rogue state that just suffered a stunning military defeat, and the commanders of the victorious army were arresting me for my wartime atrocities. Outside of my vehicle, they dropped my box of my belongings on the pavement and removed the handcuffs. After they grumbled a standard legal monologue about how I was explicitly prohibited from returning to the premises, they allowed me to gather my things and exit the parking garage under their glares of stern disapproval.

I had definitely had better days at work.

2010-03-26T15:20:00.000-07:00

Writing for Money = Bad News

2010-03-26T15:18:00.000-07:00

By Brian Polk

At one point in my life, I spent all my time trying to establish a career in journalism. Since I dedicated a great deal of my time scribbling in notebooks and typing on the computer, it seemed like a natural progression to find a way to get paid for it. And since I had scrapped plans to be a professional musician—on the basis that it was too fanciful an ambition—writing remained the last vestige of work that would spare me the drudgery of toiling away at a “real job.”
However, after scoring a few entry-level writing jobs and subjecting myself to the bizarre world of journalism, I changed my plans. This radical alteration in my life course occurred for a few reasons: (1) Journalism requires creativity, but this creativity is severely limited by the needs/sensibilities of advertisers and the fickle demands of editors. (2) Editors and writers have a long and storied history of not getting along. There are very good reasons for this. (3) Turning a hobby into a profession threatens the creative motivation for why I began writing in the first place. I wrote because it was an imaginative outlet for my incessant thoughts and observations. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t justify putting a price tag on my creative expression when it involved compromises that I never intended to make.
The latter of these arguments was best expressed by the zinemaker extraordinaire Al Burian in his book, Burn Collector. While he describes in detail the plight of his friend, Kevin, it could apply to the multitudes of artist/idealists who suffer from the effects of meaningless, unfulfilling jobs.

"Kevin is bailing on Portland. I’m not surprised. He’s been working at an insurance agency translating documents into Spanish, be he hasn’t found the experience especially fulfilling. His problem is the classic too close for comfort syndrome: he studied Spanish in college, but working for an insurance agent was probably not his ideal…Most people do not do exactly what they want to do with their time. I try to spend my employed time doing the opposite of anything I’d ever actually want to do, in order to keep my free time more pure. My theory is, if you want to spend your free time painting, don’t get a job painting houses. That’s just way too much paint."

And that’s exactly what I discovered about journalism: Sure it’s writing, but it’s not really the writing I had in mind. When I turned in a 500-word assignment on an ordinary restaurant, I secured a $50 check, but I didn’t appease my deepest creative urges. And worse, the process of degrading writing into the procurement of money made my own zine-making less fulfilling. There were just too many words and I wasn’t having fun anymore.
So I quit. But of course, I never stopped writing. I merely quit expecting to make money off of it. And once I took the profit motive out of the writing process, I felt totally liberated. I resurrected the pleasure of the pursuit and my writing became mine again. I felt much better about not just churning out disposable prose to be edited and re-edited at a going-rate of a dime a word.

Petty Complaints Corner (March/April 2010)

2010-03-26T15:16:00.000-07:00

By Brian Polk

Dear Petty Complaints Corner,
I heard someone speaking Mexican the other day. Can you believe it? In this country we speak English! Damn it! English! We don’t speak no Mexican. We ain’t morons speakin’ no backward language. No! Ain’t I don’t not want I hear nothing but that English.
—Redneck in Parker

Dear Redneck,
Where do I even begin? First of all it’s Spanish, a European language just like English. Second, what does it matter if you happened to overhear someone speaking a different European language than the one you know? It’s one thing to have feelings of inadequacy, but please don’t hide them behind your boastful ignorance—especially when your understanding and execution of the English language is so pitiful. There is nothing inherently superior about your European language, so please, show some respect. And if you don’t like it, go back to England.

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Dear Petty Complaints Corner,
Is it okay to hate the haters? I mean, isn’t that kind of petty?
—She Has A Good Point in Sarasota

Dear SHAGPIS,
I suppose it’s probably not okay to hate the haters, but read the petty complaint above and marvel at how hard it is not to.

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Dear Petty Complaints Corner,
My brother Danny got more cake than me! It’s my twelfth birthday party and he got more cake! How fair is that? I tried telling mommy, but she doesn’t even care! First I didn’t get a pony, and now this? If you can’t help me I’m going to start crying! God, I hate Danny!
—Jealous of Cake in Dayton

Dear JOCID,
Oh jeez, you should talk to your counterpart in China. (“I didn’t get a pony!” you would say. “I make sneakers for 50 cents an hour and I don’t get bathroom breaks,” the Chinese girl would reply.) And then maybe you wouldn’t feel so depraved. Despite how you feel right now, your problems are definitely not as big as you think. In the mean time you might want to start crying. After all it is your party, and if that’s what you want to do…

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Dear Petty Complaints Corner,
My girlfriend of four years just broke up with me and I want her to pay. What should I do?
—Sad And Angry In Walla Walla

Dear SAAIWW,
You’re one of those guys, huh? I would suggest getting over it and moving on, but you wouldn’t take that advice seriously, would you? So try this: Take a shot of whiskey and slap yourself in the face. It won’t improve your situation, but I’d be lying if I said you didn’t deserve it.

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Dear Sir or Madam,
My cat is much prettier than me. Is it normal for people to have extremely good-looking pets?
—Pretty Ugly in Syracuse

Dear P.U.,
I think you’re lost. This is the Petty Complaints Corner. You’re probably looking for the Crazy Questions Corner. It’s a few blocks up the road from here.

Dear Petty Complaints Corner,
Oh I’m sorry, I thought this was the Crazy Questions Corner.
—Pretty Ugly in Syracuse

Dear P.U.,
It’s a common mistake. Our corners look extremely similar.

Dear Petty Complaints Corner,
Oh okay. So a few blocks up the street?
—Pretty Ugly in Syracuse

Dear P.U.,
Yeah, just head north. You’ll pass the Equestrian Advice Corner and the Napkin Folding Crisis Intersection. If you hit the Overly Concerned Grandma Cull-De-Sac, you’ve gone too far.

Dear Petty Complaints Corner,
Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.
—Pretty Ugly in Syracuse

Dear P.U.,
Oh, no problem whatsoever.

Popular Features on the New 2010 Pickup Trucks

2010-03-26T15:09:00.000-07:00

By Brian Polk

· Size of wheels have an inverse relationship to size of driver’s penis

· Turn signals disabled so driver never has to show weakness by using turn signals

· Due to driving exclusively in the suburbs, confederate flag mud flaps are for decoration only

· Glove box holds up to 37 cheeseburgers

· Sun roof allows the driver’s self-absorption to brim over the top after it thoroughly overflows the cab

· Plastic testicles hanging off the rear are to remind driver what balls might theoretically look like if driver had any

· Fuel economy (mpg): 12, driver wants to tell ya what he thinks ‘bout that Al Gore fella

· Digital CB Radio has unlimited minutes

· Chrome door handle covers finally give driver a hint of what dignity feels like

· Trailer hitch ball-mount is not actually functional for towing, but it sure looks purdy

· CD/MP3 player capable of alternating between country music and talk radio

· Sun visors strategically placed to disguise baldness

· Powerful sound of acceleration really scares the hell out of pedestrians, cyclists, and other do-gooders

· Double-wide seat accommodates the fattest of asses

· Optional sports rack fits guns, fishing poles, and other phallic-shaped man-tools

· Upgraded speaker system allows driver to turn stereo loud enough to drown out mental reminders of crippling inadequacy

· Price tag includes $50 contribution to republican party

Review: Dead To Me

2009-12-21T21:39:00.001-08:00

Dead To Me
African Elephants
LP/CD
Fat Wreck

Dead To Me is back—and lacking in so many ways. For starters, singer and founding member Jack Dalrymple is notably (and very painfully) absent. Secondly, the pensive, captivating approach to ingenious song writing that so permeated its first two albums, Cuban Ballerina and Little Brother, has been completely scrapped in favor of a bland and unimaginative attempt to mature musically. Thirdly, the members of Dead To Me were great at being Dead To Me, but when they distance themselves from their previous efforts in a vein attempt to rip off the Clash, they inevitably sound like a bad Clash rip off. And that’s a shame, because Dead To Me was by far the best new political punk rock band of the 00s.

It’s tough to know where to begin explaining the dullness of this record. It starts with the mediocre reggae/dub tune “X,” a deliberate attempt to exhume the musical imagination of Joe Strummer. The second song—and high point of the disc if there is one—is “Modern Muse,” a catchy pop-punk tune that almost nods to the group’s inspired past. After that, however, it’s one forgettable number after the next. The worst crime of the album has to be “California Sun,” a ditty that nearly caricatures a bad Sublime tune and begins with the line, “Last night I got so high, I finally forgot your name.” This is Dead To Me? What happened to lyrics like, “I’ve got no reaction / Every action’s true” and “Cathode rays to entertain the good wage slaves”? (sigh) Hopefully African Elephants will forever be known as the “Bring Jack Back” album, and the next recording will demonstrate an actual process of musical growth and development instead of one so undoubtedly forced.

(And just for the record, I feel horrible about giving this band a bad review. Not only did I drive from Denver to Fort Collins to see them, but I was truly glad I did. They played good old fashioned political punk with heart and they had a great sense of humor about themselves. And they were the coolest, most laid back people on the face of the earth. I really love these guys. Really. I listen to their first two records daily, as I've done for the past several months. That's why I take this album so personally. It was a letdown on so many levels...)

As I Had Tried to Explain Multiple Times to Eileen

2009-12-20T11:11:00.000-08:00

By nate stone.

Scenario One:
As I had tried to explain multiple times to Eileen, my ex-girlfriend, I have never been one for conversation. Having been born with the rudimentary brain stem of a komodo dragon, I was prone to violent fits of rage and urinating in corners to mark territory. Our typical conversations were generally something like this:

EILEEN: How was your day today?
ME: Rarrgh. Mmmph.
EILEEN: Every day it’s “rarrgh mmmph” with you. Is it that painful to talk to me?
ME: BLLARCH! Rrrmphrgh. [soft, crisp sound of my chewing the laquered pine of the end table]
EILEEN: Well, if that’s how you feel about it. Why is it so hard to open up to me? Is it some sort of macho-dominance thing?
ME: Grgglmpfsh.
EILEEN: It’s like I don’t know you anymore.
ME: I think we should see other people.

Luckily for me, Eileen was usually distracted by a large puddle of fresh urine in the middle of her fresh laundry or slowly creeping darkly up the side of a new pair of thigh-high alligator skin boots before the fight became serious. This is how our relationship lasted for a year and a half: she would become angry at my guttural exclamations or my tendency to sweat profusely while sunning on top of her silk delicates, and then forget about it while spending the next hour desperately trying to avoid piss-stains on the top of her Scandinavian-designed modernist kitchen table. Now that was love.

Scenario Two:
As I had tried to explain multiple times to Eileen, my ex-girlfriend, I have never been one for conversation. Having developed Tourette’s Syndrome and a rare form of narcolepsy triggered by Scandinavian furniture, I was prone to spouting horrifying streams of obscenities and then falling into REM sleep at the sight of an Ikea catalog. Our typical conversations were generally something like this:

EILEEN: How was your day today?
ME: Fuckshit. Bitch cock ramsucker.
EILEEN: Every day it’s “Fuckshit bitch cock ramsucker” with you. Is it that painful to talk to me?
ME: TIT LICKER! Groin-pull bastard fuck!
EILEEN: Well, if that’s how you feel about it. Why is it so hard to open up to me? Is it some sort of macho-dominance thing?
ME: Suckshitcocksucker.
EILEEN: It’s like I don’t know you anymore.
ME: I think we should see other people.

Luckily for me, Eileen was an obsessed devotee of Scandinavian furniture, and it was usually a only a matter of seconds before I would spot the spare, clean lines of some new coffee table she had just brought into the apartment and instantaneously fall into a deep sleep before the fight became serious. This is how our relationship lasted for a year and a half: she would become angry at my casual obscene references to her mother’s anatomy during some high-profile work party, and then forget about it while riding in the ambulance with me after I had split my skull open after falling, unconscious, on the modernist corner of a Vërgënsøøten bookshelf. Now that was love.

Scenario Three:
As I had tried to explain multiple times to Eileen, my ex-girlfriend, I have never been one for conversation. Having been born without vocal cords, or, for that matter, a functional intestinal tract, I was typically silent and/or in the midst of tremendous stomach pain. Our typical conversations were generally something like this:

EILEEN: How was your day today?
ME: -
EILEEN: Every day it’s “I was born with vocal cords, or, for that matter, a functional intestinal tract” with you. Is it that painful to talk to me?
ME: -
EILEEN: Well, if that’s how you feel about it. Why is it so hard to open up to me? Is it some sort of macho-dominance thing?
ME: -
EILEEN: It’s like I don’t know you anymore.
ME: [Writing on dry-erase board hung around my neck] I think we should see other people.

Luckily for me, Eileen was usually distracted by my bowels exploding like Mount Vesuvius across her Scandinavian-designed corner set which functioned as both wet-bar and bidet before the fight became serious. This is how our relationship lasted for a year and a half: she would become angry at my bowels leaking their half-digested contents across her Spartan, modernist black-and-chrome house, and then become even angrier when I wouldn’t talk to her about it. Now that was love.

Review: The Inactivists

2009-12-18T16:24:00.000-08:00

Love Songs & Other Songs About Love

Have you ever wondered what would happen if They Might Be Giants started a high-energy funkish bar-rock outfit? They might just release an album entitled Love Songs & Other Songs About Love and call themselves The Inactivists. Just like the Giants, this Denver five-piece sings jocular songs about randomness. Unlike the Giants, The Inactivists embellish their words with a danceable, lively soundtrack that features an assortment of instruments—everything from accordion and theremin to ukulele and saxophone. Tracks like the folk/country “Song for Gary Glitter,” the disturbingly funky “Why (Aren’t You (In Love (With Me)))?” and the hilariously entitled reggae send-up “Lock Jah” demonstrate the band’s proclivity to write musically precise scores with absurdly witty lyrics. But make no mistake, even in the groups wackiest moments, it takes its unseriousness* very seriously. Like most of its contemporaries in the weirdo-core scene, The Inactivists are much more fun live. Regardless, Love Songs manages to be both manic and tranquil, catchy and atonal, and full of love and hate. It’s a folk-funk-rock journey into the psyche of five musically-endowed, neurotic nerds.

Other Highlights: the lovely jingle “The Last Song,” the even lovelier bonus track “Bonus Track,” and the insanely catchy honky-tonk ditty “Take Me Back”

*Might not be a word

Not All Your Enemies are Nazis

2009-12-13T13:23:00.000-08:00

(Originally appeared in Lubricated Magazine)
By Brian Polk

It seems that in these dark days of political discourse, you’re either on my side or you’re a horrible person; and there is absolutely no middle ground. From animal rights activists to pro-lifers, from uneducated Fox News-watchers to indignant anarcho-punks, it really doesn’t matter what your political spectrum happens to be. Any way you slice it, your enemies are very, very bad people. And since atrocities like the Spanish Inquisition, slavery, and Stalin’s Great Purge have long been forgotten, ignored, or rewritten as “not as bad as they seem,” the terrible scoundrels that disagree with you have to be in cahoots with a group of bad people that will never be forgotten: The Nazis.

But listen: Not everyone who conflicts with your rigid ideology is a Nazi. Sure it’s tempting, shocking even, to associate your philosophical opposites to the far-right German political group that seized power in the 1930s, sent millions to die in the death camps, and killed millions more on the battlefields of WW2—a war that they were more than happy to provoke when they invaded Poland. And yes, it’s easy to jump on the bandwagon of overly-emotional, hyperbolic-spewing talk show hosts that have a vested interest in ignoring the truth and fanning the flames of hatred by actively promoting salivating finger pointing. But come on, there has to be a better way. Is it really impossible to quell our emotions and ground our opinions in rationality? What ever happened to intellectual debate anyway?

These days, you can’t sit down to a discussion and reflect on the facts in a coherent, balanced manner. It’s terrible that this type of civility is nonexistent. And if you don’t agree with that, you might as well worship Hitler, you fascist, authoritarian, power-mongering heartless dastard. Why don’t you just kill millions of people? Because that’s what creeps like you are apt to do, isn’t it? YOU’RE WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY!!!

Ahem. You’ll have to excuse the outburst; I get very emotional about these things.

Digressions aside, below are just a few groups of people that just don’t know how to debate rationally. They rely on emotionally-charged, mouth-foaming accusations that take facts out of context and shun the greater truth. They aim at the heart and forget about the mind. And worst of all, they equate all dissenters to Nazis—who ironically, attempted to eliminate all dissenters. Weird, huh?

Pro-lifers: Obama = Nazi

According to a haphazardly cropped photograph on the Conservative Christian News website, President Barack Obama is just like Hitler because Obama loves “killing unborn babies.” Of course abortion procedures and the act of killing Jews go hand-in-hand, right? Not according to Hitler, who actually banned abortion in Nazi Germany. But we’re not going for facts here, are we? We’re trying to shock people into blindly hating an African-American president that Hitler would have detested for his darker-than-Aryan skin pigmentation. But I suppose I’m splitting hairs.

Left Wingers: Bush = Nazi
(Type, “Bush = Hitler” into Google and you’ll have a lot to choose from)

So I’m no fan of Bush either, but he didn’t send millions of Jews and other non-desirables to die in concentration camps. And he didn’t invade Poland; he invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. (It’s totally different…) Besides, at least one of the worst presidents in the history of the U.S. slightly redeemed himself by significantly expanding aid to Africa and appointing minorities into his cabinet. Hitler definitely didn’t do either of those things.

PETA: Meat Eaters = Nazis

In 2003, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals launched a “Holocaust On Your Plate” ad campaign that linked meat eaters to Hitler and company. While I agree with PETA that factory farming has absolutely no redeeming qualities and cannot be defended based on its treatment of workers, animals, and the environment, this campaign is a misguided attempt to shock and appall. When you use tactics like this, it totally degrades the purity of the message because you just can’t bully people into agreement by insulting them. Frenzied finger pointing will never get you very far in the culture wars. (If it did, I would be pro-life by now. And obviously, I’m not. Even after bearing witness to huge billboards featuring dismembered fetuses, I am still, and will always be, pro-choice.)

Ward Churchill: Americans who died in 9/11 = Little Eichmanns
(Again, type “Little Eichmanns” into Google and be amazed at the choices)

Ward Churchill didn’t invent the phrase “Little Eichmann,” but he sure popularized it with his essay, “Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens.” The people in the twin towers, claimed Churchill, weren’t innocent because they played an integral part, however small, in the deaths of innocent Iraqi civilians caused by U.S. sanctions. His premise is that Adolph Eichmann and good German civilians—who may not have actively participate in mass killings—didn’t raise a finger to prevent their fellow citizens from being slaughtered by Nazis in their own backyards, and therefore, are culprits in the crimes. He casually ignores the fact that U.S. citizens are a bit different. The latter remained largely and quite deliberately in the dark about destructive policies being wrought around the globe in their names. Had the media inundated American television sets with dying children the way they did during the Vietnam War, I’d like to think people would have a different reaction. “Blissfully unassuming folks,” would have been a better phrase than “Little Eichmanns.” But of course, Churchill definitely wasn't going for anything near a rational approach to the events of 9/11. Come to think of it, when the towers came down, no one offered close to a coherent explanation (except for the usually satirical The Onion: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/38286).

Peter Gibbons: Bosses = Nazis

“You know, the Nazis had pieces of flair that they made the Jews wear,” says Peter Gibbons, in the movie Office Space. He was referring to the obnoxious uniform his girlfriend, Joanna, had to wear at her job. The quote perfectly illustrates how far we’re willing to go to discredit our ideological opposites—or, in this case, the folks who casually inconvenience our daily routines. Aside from bosses, I’ve heard the term “Nazi” applied to principals, toll booth operators, police officers, concert promoters, right wing talk show hosts, left wing talk show hosts, communists, socialists, anarchists, capitalists, libertarians, centrists, white folks, black folks, Hispanics, gays, straights, vegans, ranchers, bloggers, Christians, Jews, Atheists, Agnostics, jocks, nerds, dictators, freely elected leaders, rednecks, liberals, conservatives, and pretty much anyone and everyone who has a pulse.

Even though I strongly recommend against it, you can say it about anyone:

“A lot of the Nazis woke up early in the morning. You have to be at work at 7 a.m. What, pray tell, does that make you?”

“Nazis had birthdays. You have a birthday, you damned Nazi!”

“Hitler got his haircut. You cut your hair every few weeks. Nazi.”

“The Nazis ate food, lived in houses, and wore clothes. Since you do all these things, you must be quite fond of national socialism.”

It's easy. Too easy in fact. It's intellectual indolence. George Orwell once said of fascism, "All one can do for the moment is to use the word with a certain amount of circumspection and not, as is usually done, degrade it to the level of a swearword." I would say the same thing about the word “Nazi.”

Denver Scene Report: Sarah’s Failin’ and the Death Panel Make-Believes

2009-11-11T11:15:00.000-08:00

By Brian Polk

Sarah’s Failin’ and the Death Panel Make-Believes

SFatDPMB may have one of the longest names in punk rock, but they make up for it with exceedingly short songs. Formerly known as Hope Mongering in the Face of Eight Disastrous Years, (and before that, Bush Fisters) these Denver rabble-rousers have altered their moniker eight times in their five-year history. “We change our name every time society takes a shit,” says the group’s singer Jerry “Face-fucker” Stevens. “And let’s face it, we’ve had a massive case of diarrhea ever since Reagan took office.” After releasing its 2004 debut 7-inch, War Bacon is Fattening the Rich, the sneering 3-piece vowed to stir the political sauce with four-chorded songs that never top the two-minute mark. “We’re not pretentious art-rockers,” scoffs Stevens when asked about his unornamented song-writing approach. “How could you be, in this fucked up country?” Nine 7-inches and an oppressive American regime later, the group still has plenty to be mad about—even without its pubic enemy number one, George W. Bush—as evidenced with its latest effort, Tea-Bags of Hate.

Petty Complaints Corner (October/November)

2009-11-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

By Brian Polk

Dear Petty Complaints Corner,
I’m a first time writer, long time reader, and I need help! I was at work the other day when one of my co-workers, “Susan,” called in sick. Since she seemed fine the day before, I was convinced that she was faking it and told my supervisor that Susan might be lying about the premise for her paid day off. My supervisor told me to mind my own business and just forget about the whole thing. But because I am a cold-hearted, terrible person, I simply cannot forget about it. Should I continue to let my unfounded resentment and petty jealousy eat me up inside? Or should I go over my supervisor’s head and tell his supervisor about it?
—Prying In Tin Town

Dear PITT, You are indeed a cold-hearted, terrible person. Here’s what you should do: Call in sick tomorrow, relax in the tub with a good book, and try not to spend your time worrying about the fact that your co-workers may have lives outside of work. It’s just a job, you know; It's not your life. You shouldn’t get wrapped up in something as stupid and insignificant as a career. And don’t tell your supervisor’s supervisor. That’s a total jerk-move. Atom and His Package has a song called, “Mission 1: Avoid Job Working With Assholes.” It really should be, “Mission 1: Don’t Be An Asshole At Work.”

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Dear Petty Complaints Corner,
My girlfriend sometimes chats with her ex-boyfriend on the phone. Every time she laughs at one of his jokes, I fantasize about beating the shit out of him. Should I beat the shit out of him? I mean, what if she makes up some sort of excuse about going to the movies with her friends and they end up sleeping together?
—Jealous In Castle Rock

Dear JICR, I would knock it off. In fact just the other day, I was talking to my ex-girlfriend over the phone—telling jokes and just totally cracking her up. Her jealous boyfriend was within earshot and ended up getting really upset. In fact, he pissed her off so much that she made up some excuse about going to the movies and came over and had sex with me. As unlikely as it seems, this very thing could happen to you.

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Dear Petty Complaints Corner,
I am a taxpayer, damn it. And because I’m a taxpayer, I don’t like this socialist president of ours giving all my money to people who need it more than me. I have things I want to buy, damn it! And here this fascist president of ours goes and takes MY money! As a feller who pays his taxes, I sure as hell don’t want to help people with their medical bills. I got my own inadequate health coverage from my employer. And since I have mine, screw everyone else! (MERICA!) I was going to buy another flat screen TV for the guest bathroom, and now I’ll have to wait until next paycheck! Why? Because our Muslim president wants to punish taxpayers like me by taking my hard-earned money and giving it to his Muslim friends. A taxpayer like me shouldn’t have to put up with this Nazi president of ours. A taxpayer like me has rights. Taxpayer!
—Madly, Angrily Shelling Out Cash Hoards in St. Tammany

Dear MASOCHIST, everyone pays taxes, not just you. And plenty of taxpayers aren’t mean-spirited, radically selfish jerks like yourself. Let me remind you of a couple of things: (1) You reserved your fiscal judgment when Bush started two different trillion dollar wars that were responsible for wreacking havoc on sovereign nations and killing hundreds of thousands of people. (2) Then when Obama proposed spending nearly a trillion on actually helping people (and not killing them), you began your campaign of shouting semi-coherent, poorly researched claims at town hall meetings throughout the country. Even though I respect the fact that our constitution allows you to voice your opinion, I have absolutely no respect for how you’ve chosen to exercise that right. You harbor bigoted opinions that stand in glaring contrast to an ideology that was flawed at the onset. Hunter S. Thompson once criticized Bush voters by saying: “They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character.” This sentiment obviously applies to the Glen Beck/Sarah Palin followers who made it a point to deny folks the right to health care. What a fucking terrible way to go down the history books.

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Dear Petty Complaints Corner,
Ever since my neighbor bought a new BMW 7-Series, I’ve been feeling inadequate. Should I go out and buy one to assuage my envy?
—Idolizing Dumb Inventions Over Tampa

Dear IDIOT, seriously? If you’re thinking a possession (like an exclusive pair of shoes or laptop or phone or, in this case, car) will bring you instant respect, you are sorely mistaking. All a BMW proves is that you’re a sucker for paying way too much for a car. Give your money to charity if you want respect.

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Send us your petty complaints: theyellowrake@gmail.com, or by mail: P.O. Box 100263, Denver, CO 80250

OTHER THINGS FOX NEWS HOST GLENN BECK THINKS THE PRESIDENT IS, BESIDES A RACIST*

2009-10-31T13:04:00.000-07:00

By Nate Stone

1) A chaotic-evil level 106 druid with +32 charisma who leads a well-financed PAC of orcs.

2) A dashing pirate forever exiled to roam the seas for a rash mistake he made as a young and foolhardy junior senator.

3) An itinerant gypsy intent on kidnapping Glenn Beck’s family and selling them into white slavery, using the proceeds to pay for teenagers’ abortions.

4) The pupal form of a beautiful gypsy moth, which, by law, must select the head of the Federal Reserve when full grown by gracefully alighting on the chosen person’s shoulder.

5) King of the Blacks.

6) A pock-marked, pimply Burger King employee who commands the entire U.S. military on his smoke breaks.

7) A Lucha Libre wrestler named “El Presidente,” whose signature finishing move is drowning his opponent in dollar bills appropriated from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

8) Bono, or maybe the Edge.

9) A smooth-talking door-to-door salesman intent on selling Glenn Beck’s frail and confused grandmother a 1,200-page health care reform plan hidden inside a set of Tupperware that will melt into a deformed, pastel mess on the first day warmer than 80 degrees.

10) An international dancehall star who’s song “Up In Them Pants (Earmark Me)” was voted #1 Summer Jam of 2008 by the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

11) Strom Thurmond.

12) A sexier, smarter, funnier, much more likeable version of himself -- one that doesn’t cry so much.

* “This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy—over and over and over again—who has a deep-seated hatred for white people, white culture, I don’t know what it is…I'm not saying he doesn't like white people, I'm saying he has a problem. He has…this guy, I believe, is a racist.”
—Glenn Beck, Fox and Friends, July 28, 2009

Checked Out: October/November

2009-10-31T13:00:00.000-07:00

Items I borrowed from the library this month
By Brian Polk

Letting Go Of God
By Julia Sweeny
(Audio CD)
“All these people were walking to church, holding their Bibles,” says Julie Sweeny in her masterpiece monologue, Letting Go Of God, “and I wanted to roll down the window and say, ‘Have you read that book? I mean, really?’” In her provocative one-woman show, the former Saturday Night Live actress (remember the androgynous Pat?) depicts her journey from curious Catholic to unassuming atheist—all of which began innocently enough when she decided she was actually going to read the Bible for the first time as an adult. What she discovered surprised and frightened her: Apparently one can justify hatred, war, slavery, sexism, or any number of humanity’s worst ills by citing passages in the Bible. Want to rape your father? Well, if Lot’s daughters are your role model, you might as well. Want to murder your progeny? That’s what God demanded of Abraham; who knows when he’ll come knocking for you. Is your mother giving you problems? Tell her to fuck off—since, according to Sweeny, that’s exactly what Jesus did: “And then there’s family,” she says. “I have to say that for me, the most deeply upsetting thing about Jesus is his family values—which is amazing when you think how there are so many groups out there that say they base their family values on the Bible…[Jesus] puts his mother off cruelly over and over again. At the wedding feast he says to her, ‘Woman, what have I to do with you?’ And once while he was speaking to a crowd, Mary waited patiently off to the side to talk to him. And Jesus said to the disciples, ‘Send her away. You are my family now.’” After being appalled by all of the book’s crazy laws and unethical behavior, Sweeny eventually drops the bombshell on the Bible’s very premise: “Why would a God create people so imperfect, then blame them for their own imperfections, then send his son to be tortured and executed by those imperfect people to make up for how imperfect people were and how imperfect they inevitably were going to be? I mean, what a crazy idea.” And so, since she couldn’t find God in the bible, Sweeny embarks upon a mission to find Him elsewhere. She travels to the East to find God in Buddhism. She travels to the Galapagos Islands to find God in nature. Eventually she has an epiphany while scrubbing her bathtub: Maybe God is nowhere. Of course, her blasphemous conclusion has very real consequences with her parents and community, which Sweeny describes with her character wit and humor. By far the most thoughtful, beautiful, varyingly dramatic and hilarious sentiment on the subject, Letting Go Of God is commonsense atheism that adapts none of the dogma or smug self-satisfaction that’s commonly associated with mainstream non-belief. It’s a denial of God with compassion and contemplation. And that’s damn good news.

Youth In Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp
By C.D. Payne
(Book)
The only thing that’s unique about Nick Twisp is his intelligence. That is, he uses polysyllabic words and breezes through his classes at his public high school. Everything else about Nick Twisp is pretty unremarkable: He’s an American teenager with a hard-on, a face full of acne, and an unrelenting obsession to raise hell and lose his virginity. He lives in Oakland, California, with his single, neurotic mother and a cavalcade of her replaceable boyfriends. His ultra-competitive, BMW-driving dad lives with his 19-year-old girlfriend across town. And along with his friend Lefty, Twisp seems to be in a perpetual state of boredom. And then fate intervened. When a business deal turns sour for Jerry, one of his mom’s boyfriends, Twisp accompanies his parent and her lover to a mobile home camp. There he meets a gorgeous young female intellectual named Sheeni. What follows is a string of events that are impossibly awkward, hilarious, and law defying. It’s a coming-of-age story that relies on all the tired contrivances of horny teenagers, but it completely redeems itself by refreshingly never losing focus of all of the inevitable clumsiness and embarrassing discomfort that comes with raging hormones. Although tortuous in length—the book is 499 pages—the soap-opera complexity and sheer ridiculousness of the plot coupled with the protagonist’s radical veraciousness completely consume its reader, forcing the increased fleetness of eager page-turning until the book’s unfulfilled conclusion. And apparently, the film version of this story stars Michael Cera and will be out some time in 2010. If they remain loyal to the novel, there’s a strong possibility that it could be palatable. Of course, that quite literally remains to be seen.

Jailbird
By Kurt Vonnegut
(Book)
Walter F. Starbuck is a man who wears a lot of hats: he’s been a communist, Harvard student, Nixon’s special advisor on youth affairs, vice-president of the RAMJAC corporation, and of course, jailbird. His memoir, Jailbird, recounts all the details of his storied life, from his service as a civilian employee of the Defense Department after World War Two to his role in the Watergate affair (which was minimal to say the least). Though this political fiction is not one of Vonnegut’s more famous works, it ranks among his best. Dense in plot and heavy on details, the prose ties actual historical events—the trial and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti and the Watergate scandal—into greater themes of communism and the labor movement in typical Vonnegut fashion. Like just about everything else he’s written, Jailbird is enlightening, heartening, and a great way to spend a string of quiet evenings.

Are You Experienced
By The Jimi Hendrix Experience
(CD)
This is an essentially unessential Hendrix album. (How many more times do you really need to hear “Purple Haze,” “Hey Joe,” or “Fire?”) Still, like every “classic rock” band, the non-hits are still worth a listen. “Third Stone From The Sun,” is a sprawling, jazz-fusion tune replete with effects and sections of spoken word. “Can You See Me”—the titular track of the group’s first album—and the blues cut “Red House” similarly never received much airplay and are subsequently worth lending an ear to. Are You Experienced is a CD that I would never consider buying—mainly because I have all this material on vinyl, but more specifically because you can hear most of the songs on FM radio. Thank goodness there are still places to get free music legally.

OTHER THINGS THAT PEOPLE PROTESTING PUBLIC HEALTH CARE ARE AGAINST

2009-10-31T12:49:00.000-07:00

By Nate Stone (1-13) and Brian Polk (14-35)

1) The sun producing light and warmth
2) Firefighters putting out fires for anyone who just calls them
3) True love
4) Ribbons on kittens
5) Non-banquet beers
6) Raising the price of the Moons Over My Hammy sandwich at Denny’s
7) The designated hitter rule
8) Libraries handing out books for free
9) Improper moustache care
10) Free unicorn rides
11) Eating lunch
12) Babies
13) Tacos
14) Dignity for anyone who makes less than $25,000 a year
15) Facts
16) Orgasms
17) Anyone who has overheard too much Spanish
18) Pre-menopausal women
19) All government health care (except for Medicare)
20) Anyone who (rightfully/obviously) claims Medicare is a public option
21) Everyone from ages 18-55
22) Hope
23) Non-Sinatra singers
24) Unwholesome acts, such as urination
25) Poor people who don’t pay enough taxes to cover the costs of systematically oppressing themselves
26) Bicyclists
27) Red lights—especially when they’re running late
28) Boners
29) Pronouncin’ words like a damned book-readin’ smarty-pants
30) All of Jesus’ Biblical quotes against the rich
31) All of Jesus’ Biblical quotes about loving thy neighbor
32) All of Jesus’ Biblical quotes about helping the poor and sick
33) The Sermon on the Mount
34) Pretty much everything Jesus ever said about anything
35) Gravity

Because Tasteless, Mean-spirited Halfwits Need a Voice Too

2009-10-31T11:39:00.000-07:00

By Brian Polk

Yesterday I had the unfortunate experience of stumbling upon the worst fucking website I've ever seen in my life. The e-tripe that this site peddles is beyond reproach. It's an insult to every intelligent, open-minded, unique-culture-appreciator that values the appropriate capitalization of words.

It all started when I wanted to see what was going on at Denver's Hi-Dive on a Friday evening. So I googled "Hi-Dive Denver" and sure enough, the South Broadway venue's site came up. However, what appeared just below the website I intentionally googled was this piece of shit I couldn't believe existed: Yelp.com.

For those web surfers fortunate enough to have never e-stumbled upon the pettiness and downright bullshit that pervades every virtual inch of the site, Yelp.com commissions curmudgeonly simpletons to write half-formed, utterly shitty reviews for free. The result is what you might expect from such a venture: Trashy crap that a third-grader could write. I'm not sure whose idea it was to give a voice to semi-literates with the absolute worst taste in culture, but it has to be among the worst ideas in the history of the internet. Yelp.com reviewers can't spell. They've never been taught punctuation (talk about a haunting indication that our under-funded public schools are failing our kids). They use their silly little text acronyms to talk shit about Denver's most integral mom-and-pop venues.

For example, a reviewer known as "Cory B" wrote the following about the Hi-Dive:

"love hi-dive but that dj jason heller needs to leave the attitude and billy joel at the door. i dont really care that you write for the onion, that may have been cool about ten years ago. i have to question mr heller's musical integrity since he prefers billy joel to siouxsie and the banshees, i mean really? do i need to be writing about this? unbelievable."

I didn't dip-shit up this review to make the writer look stupid. These are her unedited, small-minded thoughts about the Hi-Dive and my friend, Jason Heller. Yes, Yelp.com really is this bad. As much as I tried to ignore this piece of shit review, I couldn't let it go: First of all, this personal attack on Jason is totally unwarranted, inaccurate, and mean-spirited. He was playing Billy Joel because it was an 80s-themed dance night. Second, I wouldn't question his musical integrity until you listen to all the bands he has played in. And third, why would you insult his choice of careers? That's some personal shit the reviewer should have left at the door.

But it gets worse. My favorite store in the history of stores, Wax Trax Records, doesn't escape the wrath of Yelp.com half-wits either. Here's how one reviewer "Daniel A" puts it:

"Overrated. Dirty. Disorganized...Yeah, wow, they have independent music. Too bad you feel gritty when you leave. When you're done looking bored and ironic maybe you could think about putting the CDs in a discernible order...I just hurt my eyes rolling them so hard."

This review sounds like it came from someone's cantankerous grandpa. It reminds me of that customer from the movie/book High Fidelity who walks into the store and asks for "I Just Called to Say I Love You." And I have the same response for this straight-laced CD shopper: Go to the mall. Aren't you supposed to feel gritty when you leave a record store? Isn't it an integral part of the whole experience of buying music? If it's not, it should be.

I could scan the e-pages of Yelp.com for hundreds more unimaginative, simple-minded reviews, but I'm not a masochist. I just hope that the site's readership is limited to all the cretins that write for it. If anyone ever began taking that shit seriously, the best, quirky, weirdly-inspiring vestiges of our culture would be snubbed for DJs that play nothing but snob rock and record shops that look like Starbucks. And they would be reviewed by semi-literates that butcher the English language with self-congratulating, snarky write-ups that appeal to the dumbest among us.

I guess for all the internet's greatest advancements in the areas of porn and communication, it's going to have its warts. And Yelp.com is a wart the size of Jupiter.

Hit Counter Added to Blog Page...

2009-10-09T20:38:00.000-07:00

A magnificent hit counter was added to the YR blog page in order to keep track on just how many people read this e-tripe. So let it be known that as of October 9, 2009, we are keeping tabs on you.

Click on the title of this blog post and watch as the counter keeps up with you. Isn't technology amazing?

Another Advertisement

2009-10-09T20:35:00.000-07:00

Click here to buy a copy of The Best of Yellow Rake book

And click here to buy a copy of Brian's other book, Turning Failure Into Ideology

Brian's New Band...

2009-10-09T20:32:00.001-07:00

Brian has a new band, Joy Subtraction. Go ahead and befriend them on Myspace...

http://www.myspace.com/joysubtraction

Checked Out: August/September

2009-10-09T19:57:00.000-07:00

Items I borrowed from the library this month
By Brian Polk

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University
Kevin Roose
(Book)
Kevin Roose is a brave man. First of all, he committed four months of his Quaker liberal life to attend Liberty University—a school founded and administered by the Reverend Jerry Falwell. Second, he approached the semester with minimal trepidation and an incredibly open mind. Thirdly, he fit in seamlessly with the sober, virgin, born-again, mostly right wing student body. And that doesn’t even scratch the surface: He also sang in the choir at Falwell’s twenty-thousand-member Thomas Road Baptist Church, went on coffee dates with Christian girls, relentlessly prayed, and even interviewed the man himself, Jerry Falwell. Through it all, he comes to realize that born-again Christians (for the most part) aren’t the frothing-at-the-mouth, gay-bashing intolerants they’re portrayed to be. In fact, they were just confused kids at the end of adolescence trying to figure it all out. The Unlikely Disciple offers a sufficient introduction to the beliefs and habits of right-wing Christian soldiers in training. It’s always nice to get a dose of perspective—even if it’s a perspective with which you could never, ever sympathize.

What Would Jesus Buy?
Rob VanAlkemade (Director)
(DVD)
When I first saw a trailer for this movie a few years ago, I thought anti-consumerism was finally breaking into the mainstream. Of course as history has proven, the film didn’t make much of a dent—especially since our economy is still based on filling our unaffordable houses with unnecessities (just made that word up). What Would Jesus Buy? follows Reverend Billy and his activist troupe, The Church of Stop Shopping, as they travel around the country and enlighten American consumers about the “shopacalypse.” With the parodied ostentation of a Christian choir, the stop shoppers sing anti-shopping hymns to bewildered crowds of frantic bargain hunters. While its humor is biting, the guerrilla tactics probably end up alienating more people than they convert. However, the message is an important one—especially since anti-consumerists (myself included) sometimes need people like Reverend Billy to light a fire under their asses by reminding them to buy coffee from the corner shop instead of from Starbucks. Preaching to the choir has never been so much fun.

Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday
Kurt Vonnegut
(Audio-book)
For some reason, Breakfast of Champions never really had much of an impact on me—and Vonnegut is among my favorite writers of all time. Listen: Slaughterhouse Five, Timequake, The Sirens of Titan, and Mother Night are some of my favorite books. I’ve read them again and again. But Breakfast of Champions just never piqued my interest long enough for me to finish it. Even the author gave it a “C” when he graded it—along with his other books—in Palm Sunday. But since I listen to books on tape as a matter of course, I figured I’d give it another whirl. And this time around, I finally understood the underlying themes he attempted to convey: the randomness of racism, sexism, and homophobia, the relationship between a writer and his characters, and of course, free will—which is a favorite subject of the author. Still, even though I was able to identify its coherence this time around, I’ll probably file Breakfast of Champions away with other Vonnegut one-timers, like Deadeye Dick, Galapagos, and Hocus Pocus.

The God Delusion
Richard Dawkins
(Audio book)
If you’ve been looking for a coherent rebuttal to every argument made on the behalf of God’s existence, scientist Richard Dawkins wrote a book for you. As you might have guessed, The God Delusion teems with scientific jargon aimed at disproving and ridiculing believers in faith. Reading (or listening to, in my case) the whole thing is a daunting task. However, Dawkins and his wife (who both narrate the audio version) intersperse the dry text with beautifully articulated theses against the delusional belief in God. If you’re still fighting the culture war (read: atheism vs. belief), arming yourself with Dawkins’ arguments is like bringing an atom bomb to a paintball match.

Travels With Charlie
John Steinbeck
(Book)
Travels With Charlie delivers one of my favorite literary quotes of all time (and one that I felt compelled to put on my Facebook page under “Favorite Quotations”): “I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I’ve lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment.” For some reason I went on a John Steinbeck kick a few months back. And I’m glad I did. In Travels With Charlie, the great American author traveled the country with his dog Charlie to reacquaint himself with the pulse of America. It’s insightful, humorous, and a good read before bedtime.

Live At Shea Stadium
The Clash
(CD)
The Clash is like a home you can always go back to. No matter how many times you foray into strange genres or listen to indie bands for months on end (for me it was Modest Mouse), these innovative punkers always seem to welcome you with open arms. “I see you’ve been listening to nothing but Iron and Wine and The Flaming Lips,” your Clash records tell you with an air of pity. “Why don’t you give us a spin and rejoice in your roots where you know you belong?” “Ahh, that’s better,” you think to yourself after taking your records’ advice. “I feel like my old self again. Thanks.” Needless to say, I love this CD.

Review: Little Fyodor

2009-10-04T13:44:00.000-07:00

Little Fyodor

Peace is Boring

“What the hell is this?” you’ll ask yourself upon slipping Little Fyodor’s latest effort, Peace is Boring, into your CD player. And it will take several listens before you finally wrap your head around what the hell is going on here. That’s because Little Fyodor perpetrates eclectic music that's reminiscent of awkwardly laughing your way through a really confusing acid trip. The lyrics address several pressing issues facing humanity, such as uncomfortable clothes, hairspray, and as the title suggests, the dullness of peace. The songs range from straight ahead rock to Devo-inspired electro—but they’re all deliberately offensive and strangely strange in that punk rocking kind of way. As a whole, Peace is Boring rails against a culture that takes itself way too seriously (you know, the kind of thing that punks used to be really good at). And Little Fyodor is a type of prophet with a simple message: Life is too short not to have fun. So why not write a song called “Fuck-a-duck-a-luck-a-luck-a-ding-dong?” At least it makes sense to him.

Definitely recommended.

CELEBRATE LITTLE FYODOR’S CD RELEASE PARTY! (The L.F. live show borders on genius.)

Little Fyodor is releasing Peace is Boring on Friday, October 9 at the Lion’s Lair. The Limbs and Ralph Gean are also playing. Go online for more information:

Little Fyodor and Babushka

http://www.myspace.com/littlefyodorbabushka

Lion’s Lair

http://www.myspace.com/lionslairdenver

Rejected Article Ideas

2009-09-20T14:02:00.002-07:00

By Brian Polk

Sometimes meetings can be productive, and brilliant ideas flow like urine after a night of cheap beer and melon-flavored kamikazes. Other times meetings are pointless endeavors that bear some of the vilest, most rotten ideas ever imagined my human minds. Below is a list of the latter concepts that thankfully never came to fruition.

Super Drunk Me
Premise: In the vein of Super-size me and Super High Me, we figured we get drunk for a month and document the experience via a sprawling serial article.
Why it didn’t work: We get drunk all month every month, and we more or less document it via this zine. Subsequently we figured we needed an idea with more pizzazz.
Killing quote: “Why don’t we write an article about the effects of listening to punk rock and drinking cheap beer for 30 days? Hell, we might even be able to develop a whole zine on that concept.”

Proclamation Infiltration
Premise: We figured we’d disguise ourselves as sports-loving frat dudes and infiltrate and record the drunken high jinks of Denver’s notorious Lower Downtown bro orgy.
Why it didn’t work: No one wanted to do it.
Killing quote: “No way, I’m not going down there.”

Hot to do What We do
Premise: Who doesn’t like “how to” guides? Pretty much everybody. Still, we considered the prospect of devoting an entire issue to the how-tos and what-nots of making a zine.
Why it didn’t work: After careful consideration, we realized what we did (i.e. making zines) was completely irrelevant. We figured we might as well make a “how to” handbook about changing a typewriter ribbon (which actually would have been covered in the handy zine manual.)
Killing quote: If we’re going to proceed with this idea, “We should probably also teach a journalism class and show kids how to dub cassette tapes.”

Anti-Consumerist Agitprop
Premise: The cavalcade of excessive merchandise and hackneyed advertising continues to eat away at the soul, slowly dissolving any vestige of original thought and artistic merit. Soon we will all be slaves to our fickle desires, wasting our meaningless lives as we work to buy an endless amount of the tacky crap that makes us boring and stupid.
Why it didn’t work: Utilizing an arsenal of comics, articles, and other what-have-yous, we got this area pretty well covered in our past issues.
Killing quote: “Why don’t we hold off on that until next issue…”

Undercover at the Erotic Massage Parlor
Premise: Someone actually pitched the idea to go undercover in an erotic massage parlor and describe in detail what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a “happy ending.”
Why it didn’t work: The day we find someone who wants to read about it, we’ll certainly give it a shot. (Pun not intended. Seriously.) Besides, we didn’t want to give an artistic justification to someone who really just wanted a handjob.
Killing quote: “The Yellow Rake has been described as journalistic masturbation more times than we can count. Let’s not prove them right in such a literal sense.”

You Don’t Have to be a Suit to be an Asshole
Premise: This was going to be an impossibly long article defining and describing all the assholes in our culture.
Why it didn’t work: We make zines not multi-volume encyclopedias.
Killing quote: “Suits may be the biggest assholes, but they’re certainly not alone. Besides, we’d have to include ourselves on this list.”

Shitastic Plastic is not Fantastic
Premise: This was going to be the title of one of our anti-mass-production articles.
Why it didn’t work: We originally cut it for fairly obvious reasons: It’s kind of stupid in a cutesy ironic way, which is the stupidest way to be stupid. However, it did work in a way because we eventually ended up running it.
Living quote: “This doesn’t have to die. Let’s run it in our ‘worst of’ issue along with all the other bullshit we’ve come up with over the years.”

Rejected Article Ideas
Premise: We thought we’d jot down all the horrible ideas we’ve ever concocted in order to amass them in one huge master-piece-of-shit article.
Why it didn’t work: You’re reading it.
Dying quote: Brian: “Let’s never do this again.” Everyone: “Agreed.”

Work: part one, by Nate Stone

2009-09-20T14:02:00.001-07:00

Work: part two

2009-09-20T14:01:00.001-07:00

Work: Part three

2009-09-20T14:00:00.000-07:00

No Money No How

2009-09-20T13:53:00.000-07:00

By Brian Polk

You can tell how broke you are by how low you're willing to let your bank account go before you start worrying. Back when I was making the big bucks ($20,000 a year), my brain would swell with anxiety if my account wandered below the $100 mark. During this last year, it was $20. Currently, I have $9.62 in my account and I'm confident that I can get at least another meal out of it before it hits zero. That's because I make no money and I'm poorer than I've ever been in my entire life.

And it's weird, because I'm also happier than I've ever been in my entire life. I'm in a great mood most of the time. I don't totally hate my job (though I do pretty much hate it, which is actually a marked improvement in the story of my life). I don't spend all my time wishing I were dead. I'm listening to all my old punk rock records and loving every minute of them. For once, it feels good to be alive.

But that’s not how it’s supposed to work, is it? There’s supposed to be this apparent parallel between money and happiness; that is, if you have an abundance of the former, you will have the latter in spades. My own observations and experience, however, have dictated quite the opposite: the more money I earn, the more I worry about spending it on shit I don’t need. Then I spend it all on shit I don’t need. And I end up with piles of possessions that don’t enhance or benefit my life in any way. Eventually I say to myself, “You make so much money and have all these nice things and you’re still not happy. WTF, dude. WTF.” (Actually this last part isn’t true. I would never speak in acronyms. The rest of the quote is pretty accurate though.)

So we’ve all heard that money doesn’t buy happiness. This sentiment is nothing new. But why do you think more people don’t get the clue?

There is a reason for this, and no one summarizes it better than the author, Kurt Vonnegut. In his novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, Howard Campbell Jr.—the main character from another of his stories, Mother Night—expounds on why poor Americans always yearn for greener pastures…

"America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves … Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters … Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue … Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times."

So as poor folk, we’re explicitly taught to be ashamed of our economic situation. And since we’re not filthy rich, we are deemed unsuccessful and subsequently we invite the wrath of pity upon ourselves. In our country, only the insanely rich are worthy of wisdom, virtue, and happiness, and everyone else can wallow in their self-inflicted poverty.

Aside from the obvious repercussions that this sentiment breeds—being a “treasure for the rich and powerful,” as Vonnegut puts it—there are other dire consequences. When people hate themselves for being poor, they will do anything to remedy the situation. And in a country where the individual is judged almost exclusively on his/her appearance, we have this thing called credit that can eradicate the shame of supposed indigence by securing all the frivolous “necessities” one could ever desire. Buy it now and pay for it later, future creditors promise. If you don’t have a house, car, fancy clothing, or jewelry? Don’t worry about it. Get yourself a credit card and stimulate that economy now! (Of course, you’ll have to pay it back later with a hefty interest charge…) But what does later have to do with now?

Awhile back, I was listening to an episode of This American Life and a couple of employees from a credit company were discussing the worsening financial situation of a lot of their clients. “We have people that tell us how they’re desperate and have no money,” one of the credit employees said. “And we look at their bank statements and they’re going to PF Changs and Ruby Tuesdays and Starbucks, 7-11. If you go to 7-11 a couple of times a week, that adds up to $50 really fast. But nobody’s thinking about that. They’re not changing their habits to adjust to a reduction in income. Instead of changing habits, they’re changing paying [their bills].”

It’s such a mind fuck. People are willing to dine out and splurge on non-essentials just to save psychological face. “I’m not poor,” they tell themselves. “If I were poor, I wouldn’t be eating out all the time, driving a car I can’t afford, and living in a house with a mortgage that I haven’t paid in months.” It’s pathetic really.

We wouldn’t have this problem if people could just look deep into their empty wallets and say, “You know, even though I can’t afford nice things, at least I’m happy. And to hell with what anyone else has to say about that!”

There’s $9.62 in my account. I ride around town on a bicycle. I live in a modest, easily affordable house. My clothes are disintegrating off my back from overuse. Opting against dining out, I make all my meals for myself. And I feel great about everything.

If wealth were measured by happiness instead of money and material possessions, I’d be among the richest people I know. But since it isn’t, I suppose I’ll have to settle for poor and happy. Either way, it’s a pretty good life.

Review: NOFX

2009-09-20T13:52:00.001-07:00

NOFX
Frisbee (the CD is called Coaster)
LP, Download
Fat Wreck

I dig Fat Mike’s point of view: Religion is for anti-intellectual dimwits (“Blasphemy: The Victimless Crime,” “Best God in Show”). Doing drugs and drinking are both fun (“First Call,” “I Am An Alcoholic”). Conservatives still suck (“Suites and Ladders”). And punk rock should be fast and loud (the whole album). If that’s not a platform you can get behind, I don’t know what is. Frisbee is a NOFX record replete with NOFXy sounding songs and NOFXy style lyrics. In other words, these new songs will in no way take you by surprise. But it’s actually nice to know that the band never felt obligated to reinvent itself (read: no crappy metal albums or shameless appeals to the mainstream). Sure Fat Mike and company isn’t inventing the wheel, but sometimes consistency is an apt punk rock trait.

When Brian Ran For Mayor

2009-09-20T13:47:00.000-07:00

By Nate Stone

Brian received exactly two votes, and he didn't even vote for himself. He's considering another run in 2010.

Review: Accordion Crimes

2009-09-20T13:44:00.000-07:00

A Higher Quality Version Of This
CD
(Self-released)

If you were officiating a game of tug-of-war and at one end Modest Mouse and Built to Spill were tugging viciously against Shellac and Fugazi, you’d have a really shitty metaphor. On the other hand, you’d have an interesting tug-of-war match that refused to leave the CD player. After listening to A Higher Quality Version of This about a hundred times, I have come to accept that Accordion Crimes is a perfect band: its songs are maddeningly catchy, its lyrics thoughtful, its soft/loud dynamics executed with the seamless expertise of bands like Nirvana and the Pixies. The highlight of the disc, “Planes,” has the ability to reach deep within the very core of your soul and demand an emotional response: the intro is melodious and cacophonic at the same time. The drums and bass kick in a minute later like a sack of bricks across the face. The heart-on-the-sleeves lyrics are downtrodden with a shrug of inevitability—the most poignant way to sing the blues. The backbeat swings. The singer sings his fucking heart out. If you’re looking for a new favorite album that will remind you of the late summer of 2009 years from now, find a copy of A Higher Quality Version. If you end up regretting it, I’ll buy you a beer.

It’s all about the Music

2009-09-20T13:38:00.000-07:00

By Lorien Nettleton

Some people use their status as rock stars to extort special favors from the world. For a lot of people, it’s about being entitled to special treatment as a star.

For me it’s all about the music

All I can think of while receiving a blowjob from a 17-year-old groupie is how important music is in my life. If it weren’t for music, I would have killed myself long ago. I never would have gotten to do cocaine with David Bowe, or heroine with Thom Yorke.

Yes sir, it is totally about the music. I’m not in it for fame, or for money, or to see how many girls I can tit-fuck in three days (17) while playing back to back shows in Detroit. All I want is to set my soul into a melody.

Each time I cup the pert breast of a woman whose name I will never know, all I can do is sing the praise of the healing power of music. As another woman grinds her tight fishnet-and-mini-dress ass into my groin when I’m relaxing backstage, and two she-males perform mutual fellatio, and coke-filled baggies litter the couch like Easter eggs, I thank my lucky stars that writing songs is my only passion.

I just wish it wouldn't burn when I pee.

Pick up a copy of The Best of The Yellow Rake

2009-08-30T18:44:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody! If you would like to get a copy of the book, please visit the link below and maybe buy a few records while you're at it.

The Best Of The Yellow Rake at The Vinyl Collective
http://stores.channeladvisor.com/vinylhome/Items/VCTFBOOKbofyr

The Worst Of The Yellow Rake Zine...

2009-08-26T20:22:00.000-07:00

Cover by Drew Smith

The Worst of the Yellow Rake zine is available only at the Best of The Yellow Rake book release show. For more information on the whereabouts and what-have-yous of the said release party, scroll down!

Also, we're in the Westword:

http://www.westword.com/events/yellow-rake-book-release-1232860/

Yellow Rake Book Release Party!!!

2009-08-15T16:13:00.000-07:00

Huzzah! We are releasing our first ever book, The Best of the Yellow Rake. The release party will take place on Friday, August 28, 2009 at the Larimer Lounge and feature these bands:

The Dicky Jaguar Band
Joy Subtraction
Night of Joy
Two (Brian Polk and George Fraska)
OneManna

2721 Larimer Street
21+ 8 p.m.
$8

Is it Possible to Have Fun Without Drinking?

2009-08-15T16:01:00.000-07:00

By Brian Polk

It seems no matter what I’m doing, I generally find a way to incorporate the sauce. Work, school, watching television, writing, bathing, eating—I’ve been drunk through almost all of life’s activities. Of course, there comes a point in everyone’s life—whether it’s the morning following a 13-day binge, or the day after turning 28—when he or she stumbles upon a query: Must I rely on alcohol in order to have fun? To hoards of folks in their twenties, the answer is an unequivocal yes. But there’s a fine line between using the hooch as an enabler and using it as a crutch. And if you find yourself drunkenly stumbling all over this line, perhaps it’s time to consider the alternatives—because there are ways to have fun without drinking. There just has to be, right?

Just for the sake of convincing myself that there is in fact sober fun to be had, I came up with a few activities for the aspiring teetotalers:

1. Disregard Social Regulations. People drink to blur the parameters of socially acceptable behavior. They’re fed up with the cultural dictates that limit them to speaking with an inside voice, not drooling all over themselves, and refraining from atonal Journey sing-alongs at one in the morning. In this sense, alcohol is a great liberator. However, once you realize the societal commandments that govern fashion, manners, and mores are pretty much random bullshit, you won’t need 15 cocktails to make you feel better about tying a tie to your head and yelling incoherently as you burn up the dance floor with a crappy rendition of the hustle. Personally constructing your own notions of what passes as acceptable behavior is the first step to merriment without the booze. After all, you certainly won’t be kicked out of the club for acting goofy around hordes of drunkards.

2. Play Some Games. I remember telling a story about how a group of friends and I got so drunk we decided to play hide-and-seek at four in the morning. About halfway through the story—when I got to the part about how much fun we had playing this popular children’s game—I had an epiphany: Why did we need alcohol to enjoy the exuberance that comes with playing stupid games? I quickly realized we didn’t. Fun is fun no matter how drunk or sober you may be. So instead of saying things like, “We should totally get trashed and play Clue.” You should say, “How ‘bout some Clue?” For some added spice, you could dress up as the characters and transform the board game into a theatrical affair. (However, if you choose this route, make sure no one has been drinking. I’ve seen drunken fistfights break out during casting, because everybody—and I mean everybody—wants to be Colonel Mustard.)

3. Call the Friends. There’s nothing fun about being in a constant state of solitude. Sure, everyone needs some time alone to stare at the ceiling and wonder why life is taking so long. But if that’s all you do—and especially if you introduce alcohol into this crippling loneliness—you need to get out more. Find some friends with some hobbies. Call these friends and have some fun. Are you a WWII buff? Get some buddies together and reenact the Battle of the Bulge. Do you enjoy select European cheeses? Find a cheese shop and throw a party. There are literally several get-togethers you could host that don’t involve alcohol: Coffee-drinking contests, pants-folding seminars, surprise pot-lucks (which all invariably become no-lucks since no one knew they were suppose to bring food), skateboard-jousting matches, the Back to the Future trilogy-watching challenge, and of course, no underwear under here bedtime slumber parties. You could also tailor the festivities to the benefit of your own self-interest. How about a taking out the trash party? Raking the leaves hoedown? Black mold-scrubbing jamboree? Dog poop picking up pick me up? You see: fun can be constructive.

4. Prank Calling! Remember as kids when you used to call up the bowling alley and ask if they had 10-pound balls? And then when the bowling worker guys said yes, you asked them how they were able to keep their pants up? While you may dismiss the prank as “kid’s stuff,” it’s still funny. There’s something about prank calling that provides a jolt of joy and self-confidence that can brighten even the most painfully monotonous day. So don’t stop with the bowling alley when there are plenty of other people just waiting to be prank called. Order stacks of pizzas to lousy ex-boyfriends’ houses. Call the Whitehouse (202-456-1111) and ask why the president hasn’t taken a firm stance against the extraterrestrials that have developed thought-reading technology that can penetrate even our most fortified foil helmets. Call a refrigerator repair shop and ask them if their refrigerators are running. However, since Caller ID is ubiquitous these days, you may want to wait for your drunk friend to pass out so you can use his phone.

5. Smoke Pot. Do you remember the song about the lady who swallowed the fly? Then she swallowed a spider to catch the fly. And she eventually swallowed a cow to catch the goat to catch the dog to catch the cat to catch the bird to catch the spider (that wiggled and jiggled and tickled inside her) to catch the fly. And no one knows why she swallowed that fly. (Perhaps she’ll die.) This song is a lot like drugs. The fly is alcohol, and once you’re done swallowing it, you have to swallow increasingly dangerous drugs just to have fun. (Perhaps you’ll die.) Here are some alternate lyrics to the “Old Lady” song that apply to most of my friends:

There was a kid who snorted some blow.

Oh gosh I don’t know, why he snorted some blow!

He snorted some blow ‘cause he couldn’t get ‘shrooms.

He couldn’t get ‘shrooms and he was tired of acid.

He was tired acid and he couldn’t afford hash.

He couldn’t afford hash ‘cause he bought too much pot.

He bought too much pot and he drank too much beer. (YUMMY!)

That enlarged and in charged and bloated his tummy.

He drank too much beer ‘cause he really loved booze.

I don’t know why he really loved booze.

Perhaps he’ll lose.

So I guess there you have it. Once you’ve tried everything else, there’s still a large part of the day that needs to be lived. And if you stopped watching television, what else is there to do? Maybe it’s a downward spiral with a series of chain reactions you just can’t avoid. I suppose you might want to just throw in the towel and admit to yourself that you can’t have fun without chemically impairing your ability to operate heavy machinery.

Jeez, you didn't realize you were this fucked, did you?

Health care is kind of like the library: It should be open to everyone

2009-08-12T21:00:00.000-07:00

By Brian Polk

Spare me your horror stories of socialized healthcare—I just don’t believe them. I’ve talked with several Canadians and Europeans and none of them report any long lines, waits for surgery, or unqualified doctors. In fact, I’m convinced those stories come from within our own borders: Recently I paid a visit to Denver Health’s emergency room because my dog almost bit my finger clear off. I can safely report that I had to wait several minutes before I was even acknowledged, even though I was holding my bleeding finger in a dishtowel. When they finally found me an open bed, I sat there holding my finger in place for well over forty-five minutes before they finally gave me a painkiller. A full 5-6 hours later, they finally found someone who could stitch my finger back together. And then they almost let me leave without a prescription for painkillers (they told me to take Tylenol) because all poor people will abuse or sell prescription drugs, right? Even with the best health insurance money can buy, the whole ordeal cost me $500—a hell of a lot of money for someone like me. Despite the fact that my arguments for socialized healthcare are vast, I will say only this: Everyone needs medical attention, even poor people.

Fans of Facebook...

2009-08-10T21:45:00.000-07:00

We are now on Facebook. Become a fan!

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/The-Yellow-Rake/151753629568?ref=ts

Jason is Still Too Sexy for His Bike

2009-07-09T21:14:00.000-07:00

Haikus to My Cell, My Liver, and Myspace, (and now Facebook)

2009-07-09T20:45:00.000-07:00

By Brian Polk

"My Cell"
Ringing, oh ringing,
Talking and texting, enough!
I must kill my phone.

"My Liver"
Liver, I'm sorry
For the booze, if only you
Knew how fun it was

"Myspace"
I'm a little too
Old for all of this nonsense...
Comment me later?

("and now Facebook")
Facebook is Myspace
But for some reason it's fine
for grown ups like us.

Ways To Deal With the Total Implosion of Capitalism

2009-07-04T18:20:00.000-07:00

By Nathaniel Albert Stone, Certified Financial Counselor

Concerned about the economy? Of course. We all are. What with massive house foreclosure, collapsing banks, rising unemployment, and a completely frozen international credit market, it’s hard to see how things can get much worse. Sure, we could devolve into a series of primitive fiefdoms, ruled by the strongest amongst us and forced to feast on the raw flesh of our neighbors in order to survive, but that’s a good year or two off. In the meantime, here are some ideas that can help you and your family weather these tough times:

1. Build an apple cart from wood stolen from abandoned loft construction sites. Sell apples. People can’t get enough apples. Pick out a jealously guarded street corner for your business, stabbing anyone who encroaches on your turf with a sharpened stake taken from a decaying McCain-Palin yard sign.

2. Grow out a rattail. Stroke it for reassurance every time you have to stand in line for unemployment benefits.

3. Become a 21st Century hobo, riding buses for free by dropping onto their roofs from highway overpasses, wandering from city to city looking for free wifi for your Nintendo DS, which you keep charged with homebrew batteries made from onions and vinegar.

4. Build a gigantic dam, creating thousands of jobs and millions of watts of energy while showing that fucking water who’s in charge around here.

5. Join the zombie army after they conquer Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma in early 2010. They have an excellent health plan and a really flexible comp time program.

6. Grow up a child of privilege on the East Coast but lose full use of your legs after an early battle with polio. Run for president and invent the modern social welfare state.

7. Put everything you own in a mattress. Stuff the mattress in a coffee can and bury it in your backyard. Have your house foreclosed on and lose your yard. Get shot by the National Guard when you try to sneak back into your condemned suburb to dig up everything you own.

8. Ask Congress to cover your bills.

9. Start practicing a folksy Midwestern accent and staring off into the dust-blown distance with nobly weary eyes. Learn how to play guitar. Write a lot of songs about “rambling,” “hard times,” and “punching a child in the throat to get the last bowl of soup after waiting in line for six hours.”

(Many more suggestions will appear in The Best of The Yellow Rake Book, out August 28, 2009)

Saved My Life

2009-07-04T17:46:00.000-07:00

By Drew Smith

Suburban Home Records: Surviving the Record Industry’s Hardships with Grace

2009-07-04T17:39:00.000-07:00

By Brian Polk

It’s hard to remember the last time anyone penned a success story about the flagging record industry. Aside from all the “vinyl comeback” articles that the major media outlets were all too eager to gloat about, any news over the last decade has been very bad news for most recording companies.

But despite the consumer’s dwindling interest in songs that aren’t free, there are exceptions to the downward trajectory of recorded music.

“Somehow, despite how shitty the industry is, we’re doing really well,” says Virgil Dickerson, owner of Denver’s Suburban Home Records and it’s online counterpart, Vinyl Collective. “The past year was the best year we’ve ever had in our 15-year history.”

Which is good news for at least someone in the business. But even though things may be rosy now, much like the overall picture of the rest of the industry, Dickerson’s professional life hasn’t always been so encouraging up to this point. “It has constantly been a roller coaster up and down,” he admits. But through it all, the 33-year-old, life-long punker somehow managed to never lose sight of why he started the label in the first place: unrelenting appreciation and devotion to the culture of underground music.

If you told the 20-year-old Virgil about how successful his label would become, he probably would have never believed you. Partly because it’s impossible for a college punk rocker to envision himself in his 30s, and partly because he was too busy putting together the first incarnation of Suburban Home, which was in the form of a fanzine.

“We put out the first issue of the Suburban Home fanzine on September 1, 1995,” says Dickerson with the obvious nostalgia it takes to recollect the exact date. “We first distributed it at a show in Denver at the Aztlan Theater. It was the first time I saw Pinhead Circus. I think they were playing with Mandingo and Schleprock.”

It was this show that he met a lot of the musicians that would impact the Denver punk scene for years to come, including members of The Facet and Pinhead Circus—bands that would wind up on the Suburban Home Compilation, Punk, It’s all about the Orchis Factor.

But Dickerson didn’t start releasing records until a year later, when he discovered the Raven, a small, all-ages club on Welton Street (that has since become the Climax
Lounge).

“For a time there, the Raven on a Friday night would have three or four hundred people. At that point—I don’t feel like it’s so much so now—there was such a big family of the bands and fans. Everyone would party and hang out together. I never thought I’d have a job doing anything like this, but I knew I wanted to be involved some way. That’s how the fanzine started. And that’s how I started Suburban Home Records.”

Initially the label was a testament to ‘90s style pop-punk, releasing Screeching Weasel-influenced bands like Overlap, the Fairlanes, and the Gamits. The aforementioned compilation even featured the likes of Digger and Blink 182—the latter of which, of course, went on to sell millions of records.

But in the early 2000s, when the popularity of pop-punk waned, Virgil’s musical tastes broadened beyond four-chord progressions and songs about girls. It wasn’t until he befriended and eventually signed the alt-country super-group, Drag the River, that he broadened both his musical tastes and the primary focus of his label. Though he didn’t know it at the time, adding the band to the roster would eventually open the door to signing much bigger acts, like Tim Barry, singer of the quintessential Richmond hardcore outfit, Avail.

However, “preceding that,” he says, “we had some difficult times.”

By far his biggest hardship occurred in March 2007, when sluggish CD sales in the pre-vinyl boom days nearly bankrupted the company. Dickerson downsized his staff and moved the operation into his actual suburban home. It got so bad he pleaded with his customers to help his struggling company by buying anything they could. “Then we just got so much support from people all over,” he says. “It helped us get through a
really tough period. Somehow after that it slowly got better.

“Coincidentally,” he continues, “working with Tim Barry and Drag the River and starting the Vinyl Collective was a whole new chapter for us. Since then every year has been better than the previous year.”

It helps that Suburban Home has been buoyed by the rediscovery of a long-dead music format and releases by more notable acts. However, it’s doubtful whether his company would have reemerged so successfully without the friendship-first, business-second approach Dickerson takes with all his bands.

“For me it’s really important that our relationship with our bands is strong,” he says. “Other labels treat it as purely business and don’t look at the personal aspect at all. But for most of us that get into this, we don’t do it because of money, we do it because there is that connection personally. It’s hard-wired into our DNA. I love all the bands we work with—not just musically, but as far as people go.”

It has been a long time since the owners of record labels have talked about putting the love of people and music before money. Similarly, it has been awhile since they were able to say the things that Virgil gets to say, like, “We’re going to put out more albums next year than we have in the past five years.” That’s also probably why there has been such a dearth of good news to report about the record industry in general.

Of course, when people like Virgil, who are in it for all the right reasons, have better years than money-obsessed phonies, the bad news might not be such a bad thing.

The White Man and the N-Word

2009-07-04T17:35:00.000-07:00

By Brian Polk

The white man is angry. Somewhere along the line of historical and cultural evolution he lost profound rights and entitlements. No longer can he discriminate based on race, gender, or sexual orientation in the workplace. No longer can he preserve separate but equal restroom facilities. And worst of all, no longer can he use the n-word, despite its ubiquity in rap lyrics, stand-up comedy and popular sketch shows on Comedy Central. Oh white man, whatever will you do in such an unfair world?

So Fox News-viewers and right wing talk show hosts just can’t seem to fathom why they, as white men, don’t get to spout off hate-filled diatribes whenever they get the urge to do so, which I can imagine is quite often. These right-wingers claim that since the n-word is open game for African Americans, it should be open to bigoted white folks as well. After all, they’re only trying to create a fair and balanced society, right? They must have the noblest notions of equality in mind when they promote this issue, don’t you think?

I have to say, I have my doubts about their intentions. To me this issue isn’t about leveling the playing field, or granting equal opportunity for all; it’s more about a bunch of old white guys finding it increasingly difficult to hide their prejudice in a society of burgeoning tolerance. They’re tired of feigning open-mindedness so they yearn for the good old days when they could be much more public about their racism. In other words, they’re ideas and attitudes are becoming extinct, and boy are they pissed about it.

Also, I don’t think it’s unfair for edgy pop cultural shows like Chappelle Show or hip hop albums like Straight Outta Compton to make gratuitous use of the n-word. White people may have invented that word, but the black folks took it back. (Kind of like what the gay queero did with the words "gay" and "queero.") It is no longer a part of the dominant race's vocabulary. Whitey wins some and loses some, right? (Okay, mostly wins some.) But the white man lost this one, and I say good riddance.

But that's because I have never even considered using the n-word. And not saying it is no big deal really. It’s not like it was hard for me not to utter hate-filled remarks about an entire race of people. I made no concerted effort not to be an racist jerk. But there are still white guys that want so desperately to use say those words. Oh they want it so bad! But I suppose that’s really a personal problem. Socially accepted racism is going the way of the dinosaur, and only a real douche-arino would feel bad about that.

And no matter what anyone says, this is not a first amendment issue. No one is going to jail for being a backwards redneck. Some ignorant white guy may have a hard time finding a job because his views don't mesh well with those of open-minded folks, but that has nothing to do with the constitution (and everything to do with with the fact that no one wants to work with an asshole).

At some point in his life, the white man—and every human of every race, nationality, etc.—would surely benefit by realizing that it’s okay not to be racist. Some rights just aren’t worth having.

Jason is Too Sexy for His Bike

2009-07-04T17:29:00.000-07:00

Fun with Haikus

2009-07-04T17:28:00.001-07:00

By Brian Polk

Great God in the sky
You made humans to laugh at
Comedic genius

3:33 AM

2009-07-04T17:25:00.000-07:00

By Drew Smith

I remembered my eyes / A stilled comfort
In cries / Inside the deep cuts that
Bled me dead / I said
I’ll miss you forever
I’ll see you tomorrow
That’s me in black
In the shadow left out back
Closer to you by time / Dragging me across
That line / Even after I’m reaching for
You in last night’s dream / And it drains
All over this evening / I know
I’ll miss you forever
I’ll see you tomorrow
That’s me in black
In the room I’ll leave dark
For when I’m silenced / for now / for how /
I carry me in my arms / This one’s lost
In your charming/ and smile / and shining
Your eyes / I’ll glaze over and
I’ll miss you forever
I’ll see you tomorrow
That’s me in black / the detached
Failing all over and over
Again/ My best friend / Again 3:33 AM

Because Bathing is Important

2009-07-04T17:23:00.000-07:00

By Nate Stone

Deconstructing the Convenience Myth of Modern Culture: Adventures of a Great Degenerate in the Penal System

2009-07-04T17:21:00.000-07:00

By Stephen Polk

A great degenerate hooligan strikes again.
Oh the depravity!
Oh the horror!

Wait a minute folks,
Just wait one minute.
A science of sorts is fermenting
In the mind of the deprived mastermind
Of a deleterious breed of human…

A cop
Oh yes, a cop of all cops…
A cop of science!

She has thrown away all
Of the archaic forms of
Humans past who have
Studied the past actions of
Humans
Into the trash.

Her mind is governed
By an almighty covenant
That dictates her actions…
A dictatorship of thought and action.

As she laboriously studies
The crime scene through
Her microscope of truth
Painstakingly examining every
Shred of evidence
In her state funded laboratory…

Our Great Hooligan’s
Mind Is Now Corrupt
Deprived Of Action
In His State Funded
Cell…
A Degeneration Of Thought And Action

The Horror!
The Depravity!

The one who Brought the World Back

2009-07-04T17:20:00.000-07:00

By Drew Smith

Wasn’t for spite. Wasn’t to be the hero. It just came to him. From birth you could tell he was misplaced. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He wasn’t meant to feel this pain. He shouldn’t have to watch these people lie, manipulate, steal from, take advantage of, Hurt or Kill each other.

What the hell kinda place is this? Watch money become more important than life. Watch the T.V. tell them it was okay to be this way. Watch them become obese whilst consuming, consuming, consuming. Anything they get their hands on turns into MINE. Getaway. Give me yours.

And there aren’t any decent people left. Records show the last one died 81 years ago. The same day was born the one who Brought the World Back.

Through childhood troubled, picked on, and abused. And it made him stronger. Through adolescence tortured, alone and starving. And it made him think. Through adulthood grieving, lost and broken. And it made him hopeful. Now frayed, hopeless and fearful. 81 Years of a most unfortunate life.

With only one thing left to do. He raised his cane and struck it to the ground. While in the most compassionate voice he whispered, “Mother, let me in.” He fell into her arms, past time and beyond.

As a new piece to the earth, as sprouts a new tree. We are captured in our faith when surrounded by our Mother’s beauty. When we sit to the tree in grass high as knee, we hear the compassionate whisper, “Don’t forget me.”

I look to you all. From me you see. The most thankful tear this boy will ever weep. Down my face, it falls to the ground and with a hug to the tree. For there in my silence, I made my own special pact. With the one who brought the world back.

Stations of the Cross

2009-07-04T17:14:00.000-07:00

By Jason Heller

Punk and radio always used to be at each other’s throats. Or rather, punk gnawed at the ankles of radio with puppy-force ferocity while radio marched on, pretty much unphased. Joey Ramone crooned “We Want the Airwaves,” and—like everything else the Ramones sang about wanting—it sounded like a joke. But it wasn’t. And they never really got those airwaves, at least not on the scale they’d wished for. (Though to their credit, I suspect most of them wound up sedated, sniffing glue, good boys, someone’s boyfriend, being well, living, not walking around with you, and having something to do at some point in their careers). Stiff Little Fingers’ “You Can’t Say Crap on the Radio”—for reasons as obvious as the song title itself—never shattered any chains of censorship or oppression. And the Clash lashed out against corporate media in “Capital Radio,” and again later in the aptly named “Radio Clash”—by which time they’d already had a top-40 American hit. And weren’t even really punk anymore.

Ironically enough, that Clash hit, “Train in Vain,” might have been the first remotely punk song I ever heard, even if it did sound more like a Stax tune. And I heard it, of course, on the radio. But to this day I wonder: What kind of frame of reference would I have had if I hadn’t grown up, hand on the dial, enthusiastically scanning stations for a chance to hear punk traitors like Billy Idol and the Go-Go’s and pretenders like Joan Jett and, um, the Pretenders? I mean, if “My Sharona” hadn’t been stamped on my forebrain since third grade, would “Going Underground” have resonated so deeply? I never used to think so, but the fact stands: the Jam is just a way, way better version of the Knack. Hardcore, of course, is another matter entirely—but 7 Seconds did do that kick-ass rendition of “99 Red Balloons,” and even Minor Threat covered the Monkees.

It might sound like I’m building up to a defense of punk rock on the radio in the 21st century. And in part, I guess, I am. After all, there will be those precious few kids listening to shit like Sum 41 who will wind up discovering, through these gateway punks, music much more subterranean and substantive. But I really don’t care. I barely listen to the radio at all anymore. And when I do, there are only two stations I can stomach: AM 1430 and 92.5 FM. KEZW and KDJM. “Your station for memories” and “Jammin’ oldies.” In other words, the easy listening station and the classic soul station, music for old folks and black folks, respectively. As a whippersnapper honky, I am plainly neither. And yet, these stations—this music—gets me. And I get it. On one hand, you’ve got Sammy Davis Jr., the Carpenters, Peter, Paul and Mary and Sergio Mendes. On the other, you’ve got the Gap Band, Donna Summer, Al Green and Al B Sure. Punks, as Aaron Cometbus once observed, have a lot in common with both old people and Jews. Similarly, 1430 and 92.5 appeal to me not just as a person, but as someone who loves punk. It’s way less commercial. It’s bound tightly in nostalgia. And it all sounds the same to the outside listener. And, like punk, cheesy ‘50s pop and slick ‘80s R&B have way more depth and sophistication than most people realize. Just listen to Eater or Bing Crosby or Cameo. Listen close. You’ll see.

But it’s more than just the music that attracts me to these radio stations. For one, the commercials don’t scream at you. In fact, there are way fewer commercials period, maybe because advertisers assume that their young/middle-class/white target market is tuning in to the anemic “modern rock” on KTCL, the smug, limp junk on KBCO, or the same Dire Straits song over and over again on the Fox. Even the DJs are better. On 1430 and 92.5, there’s nothing remotely resembling a shock jock. The on-air personalities are warm, friendly, almost soothing—and they know their shit about the music they play, rather than being picked out of a graduating class of broadcasting students drilled more in speech and marketing than any true passion for music.

But both of my favorite stations have something else in common, something that unites their seemingly disparate listening constituencies in a profound and fundamental way. I woke up this Sunday morning to the sounds of neighborhood kids yelling, lawnmowers humming—and Jesus. You see, I’d left the radio on KEZW as I fell asleep last night. And on this day of the lord, they decided to transmit the most wretched choir music, just like the crap you hear in big churches, with Jehovah’s holy light streaming in through the stained glass, conveniently looking past the groping of alter boys in the confessionals.

Pissed, I quickly spun the dial over to 92.5, hoping to clean that horrible taste out of my mouth with some Chic or Chaka Khan. But no. Instead, they were playing gospel music. And not good old gospel like Mahalia Jackson, but that slick, parody-of-itself gospel that makes the Blues Brothers sound like the Funk Brothers. As the praise reached a brain-frying crescendo, I slammed my hand down on the radio and returned my room to relative silence.

I was shattered. My two favorite radio stations—the ones that I’ve long ago reconciled and then proudly attached some essential part of my musical identity to—have more in common than just me.

It made me wish like fuck that I had some Crass handy.

The Bus Costs $1.75

2009-07-04T17:13:00.000-07:00

By Charly “the city mouse” Fasano

As I wait at my bus stop I watch a hippie pray for peace in front of newspaper headlines while his dog shits on the sidewalk.

A less than clever con man is trying to sell a stolen car battery in front of a bicycle shop.

I see the 15 Limited straddle rush hour. I jumble through my pockets for bus fair.

It’s a hot day. The driver is out of transfers. The bus is packed. There’s no close like this. Passengers stand hip to hip, canned in transit up and down Colfax Ave.

We rattle past hotels with signs that lie about having clean rooms and cable TV.

Past the Guardian Angel headquarters that’s never open.

Past a hooker wearing a Broncos football jersey, sweatpants and running shoes. Only cops look like prostitutes in movies.

Home is getting closer.
The bell rings just before my stop on Downing St.

I swim through commuters toward the back door between excited junkies right after a methadone treatment.

I step over an ex con wearing court ordered jewelry around his ankle. He’s hitting on the lady sitting next to him. He’s trying hard to act like a free man.

I trip on an oxygen tank hooked to a man bitching about the price of cigarettes.

Down three steps
Out the back door
To the street.

How I get place to place is filthy. Jerky motions and smells tested me until I got here.

Times like these should never cost more than a dollar fifty.

Life's a Party: Salesman

2009-07-04T17:10:00.000-07:00

I was on Air America with Janeane Garofalo

2009-07-04T16:56:00.000-07:00

By Jason Flores-Williams

I was on Air America with Janeane Garofalo. The Republicans were coming to New York City. Our generation was giving birth to a new activism. I went off about the need to hit the streets. Next morning I woke up to 60 emails telling me that I should grow up, that I had no credibility and could go fuck myself. I was used to hate mail. Throughout the Summer I averaged ten a day from the Christian right. (Wild stuff about how I was going to burn in hell.) But these emails were from liberals. I talked with other activists about it and they weren’t surprised. Turns out that whenever there’s a whiff of movement in the air—liberals try and suppress it. The left starts to mobilize and a division appears between the progressives willing to fight for change and the flaccid liberals who would rather die than make a real statement.

I understand pulling back. This world beats the hell out of us and sometimes the best we can do is order Chinese and watch five hours of TV. But why would people unhappy with the Bush administration get bent out of shape with people trying to protest the Bush administration? I’m not only talking about hate mail. There was an article on Salon where allegedly noted liberals went out of their way to try and chill the RNC protest movement. More than once I turned on NPR and heard people dissing us.

The liberal complains that American society is apathetic, says the Bush Administration is disgusting, claims to recognize that there are profound systemic problems, but does nothing. The liberal stands by as people get beat up. They say they wish it wouldn’t happen, that the bully disgusts them, that the world has lost its way, but turn their back. Making this worse, if someone steps in and tries to stop the beating, tries to fight off the bully, the liberal analyzes the situation with big words and finds a way to criticize that person for taking action. The liberal defines the American left. These are the professors, the publishers, the main writers, famous artists, politicians, and hip professionals with money & access to the machine. Any time progressives rise up and manage to bring attention to our issues, these liberals immediately set out to marginalize us. They characterize us as angry and not to be taken seriously. They condescend to our grassroots efforts until a strategy works, then co-opt it for their own purposes. They condescend to our books and music until there’s some money to be made, then claim it as their own. The same applies to gentrification. The progressives add art to the neighborhood and respect the community, then the liberals move in with their money and sanitize out families who have been there for generations.

The accepted wisdom is that progressives have no choice but to serve as a kind of stepping stone to the liberal agenda. Our community building will always end up serving the Democratic Party. Every time we move into neighborhood like Williamsburg or the Mission District we can count on liberals taking over in five to seven years. The bombed out buildings we make into community art space must always become restaurants that only they can afford. I don’t think it has to be this way, but we can only protect progressive politics and culture if we recognize it. We are second-class citizens in this country. The liberals have cool careers in publishing and the arts. We work temp jobs and wait tables on them. The liberals make their money in politics, we go broke through our activism.

Our art, our convictions, everything we do dooms us to a life of frustration and struggle in America. Yet it is from progressive politics and culture that the best “liberal” minds are sprung. Progressives should recognize that they have different lives and make different choices than liberals. Progressives should stop identifying themselves as a subclass of the liberal establishment and more as the working poor.

This isn’t pie in the sky talk, this applies to the gentrification issues going down in Williamsburg. Acknowledge that there is a substantial difference between the progressive artist-activists who have made the neighborhood what it is and the wealthy liberals set to take over the waterfront development. I was living in the Mission District on 18th and Folsom in the early 90s. It was a great hood. Latino culture was thriving, there were community gardens, murals, and soccer games. And then the Silicone Valley boom killed us. The liberals moved in with their soul patches and SUVs and turned it into a white playground. They talked a good game about community and respect, but their words didn’t mean anything. The system was on their side. They weren’t about to do anything that was going to threaten their status. And as time went on, I saw that they were downright condescending to our beliefs.

The liberal hate mail I got during the RNC protest was a product of this division that has gone unspoken for too long. Liberal maintenance of the status quo—under the guise of us all being on the same team—has had too much input into the progressive fight. They’ve ruined our communities, watered down our culture. The point is to stop handing them everything on a silver platter, stop serving them dessert while they talk politics and ignore us standing there. The liberal loves to view everything from a safe distance. Revolution is supercool as long as it’s 90 years ago. Che Guevara is totally sexy as long as long as he’s played by that cute Mexican actor (and good and dead where the CIA buried him). Civil unrest is sooo necessary as long as it’s in an Eyes On The Prize documentary (and it’s not us but the blacks getting their asses bitten off). Latino culture is really awesome; go see Frida and Like Water for Chocolate (but get rid of the Mexicans from the neighborhood.) Those progressive activist artist people are so cute and edgy (but the waiters have such bad attitudes!) Orale, maybe it’s time we get in their faces a little bit. Start getting down with what’s going on right now.

Join the Posse

2009-07-04T16:50:00.000-07:00

Stories that Someone Should Write Sometime

2009-07-04T16:44:00.000-07:00

By Stephen Polk

A story about two old women who embezzle thousands of dollars by scamming their church bingo tournament over the course of 24 years in order to fund their healthy habit of pot smoking: Will they be allowed into heaven?

Lesbian puppy dogs and the epic journey to save their souls: Is our lascivious culture corrupting the once incorruptible?

The sexual adventures of a trucker, a nun, and an urban hippie in the backseat of your father’s new Ford: Who is filming behind the bushes?

Civilization: Who needs it?

Suburbanites struggling to find meaning beyond their material goods: An evolutionary miracle?

Sometimes I wish I were born a woman.

A woman tries to find a light switch in the dark but only finds a ham sandwich and is infinitely more satisfied … Is ham a nighttime meat?

Chickens and Roosters together at last: What is the fucking deal?

All’s fair in love and grade school sloppy-joe wars in the cafeteria: Is the lunch lady pregnant?

One man’s lust for “freedom” and the people who die as a consequence: Why does capitalism suck so much?

The domestic disputes of Jesus and Mary Magdalene: Can anyone argue the fact that marriage really sucks, almost as much as capitalism?

The disastrous, yet surprisingly humorous, follies of five guys who thought it was a good idea to stick their thingies in a hole in the wall: Would you do the same?

“The ‘Nutty’ Professor and His ‘Hard’ Working Students”: Is there educational value in pornography?

The Yellow Rake Number 16

2009-07-04T16:27:00.000-07:00

Here is a mighty fine review from Profane Existence:

Link_to_profane_existence

ACRASSICAUDA: Sounds from Iraq

2009-07-04T16:05:00.000-07:00

By Dave Paco

I came across a website one night while surfing around on the Internet that boasted Iraq’s only heavy metal band! I wanted to know more about the band and their background so I got a hold of them we did this little interview via email.

You call yourselves Iraq’s only heavy metal band. Is that a true statement and, if so, why? Is there much guitar rock in general happening in Iraq?

Yes, we are for now. There are a lot of guitar players but they have not got the chance to make a band because of the what the war left in Iraq.

What is your musical background and influence? What got you into metal?

We got into metal because we want to tell the world that there are people in Iraq and we still have a life and not all of us have the wrong idea about the world. Our background and influence is life and what we see every day and for sure the bands we like... All the band members have their own best, but I will say Slayer, Death, Slipknot, Metallica, Megadeth, etc.

What kind of venues do you usually play? Do you play outside Iraq?

No, we haven’t played outside of Iraq yet and the shows we make in Iraq are on our own. No one helps us do it and we do it because it’s the only way to express our anger.

Does Iraq have a strong local music scene or is most popular music foreign?

Iraq has that strong local music and that’s what really makes it harder for the rock scene.

Can you give me a description of your lyrics or tell me what some of your songs are about?

Our songs are all about the daily life in Iraq and all what we suffer from the war.

Many Americans are disgusted by the war in Iraq and don’t trust our president’s intentions. Do you feel Iraq is on the way to democracy and freedom or do you think America will retain some control of the government to protect its oil interests there?

In some ways Iraq is better now, but before we were afraid of one guy and now we are afraid of everyone. Before if you say any thing bad about Sadaam you will be dead, but now say anything bad about anybody, you will be dead...and it’s kind of funny.

Are you religious as a band or as individuals?

We are not extremely religious as individuals and one of the members is Christian. Also as a band the music we play deals nothing with the religion.

Do you feel that the current tensions between world religions could result in another world war?

No, not really.

Do you ever encounter discrimination because of the type of music you play?

People think what we do is devil worship but we don’t think that the people understand what it is really.

The World Wide Web has made many changes in communication and media. For instance, that’s how I became familiar with your band. Do you think these changes will greatly affect the music industry? How do you feel about people downloading music illegally?

For sure [the Internet changes the music industry], and people download music illegally. I am one of them because as you know not everybody in the world can buy a $25 CD just for listening. No, they shouldn’t [download illegally] but in cases like we have here in Iraq we don’t have a credit card or any way to pay off the internet so I guess the people who own these music stores or web sites, they SHOULD come and open music stores here in Iraq so we can pay them!

Do you trust the media in Iraq? Is there much connection between the local media and powerful companies or politicians?

No, I don’t think so but we don’t trust them because there may be some connection between the local media and terrorists.

Heavy music has long been controversial because of the sound and content. Do you consider heavy music as a positive or negative force in the world today? What has it done for you?

We consider heavy music as a positive force in the world. And it does give us that kind of space to express our mind.

Is Acrassicauda a full time project or do the band members also have day jobs? If so what do you each do for work?

It’s not a full time project because we have to work to support our families. We have every day a different job. I do work in a computer store and some of us don’t even have a job except playing music.

Is there anything you'd like to tell the readers?

We love rock and we think that it is that music that can change the world in many ways, so keep rock and be safe.

The band members:
1. Firas . bass player
2. Fisel . vocal
3. Tony . lead guitar
4. Ahmead . lead guitar & rhythm
5. Marwan . drum player

Our we site is: www.acrassicauda.s5.com
and the band email is: acrassicauda_metalband@hotmail.com
acrassicauda_metalband@yahoo.com
My Space: www.myspace.com/wwwacrassicaudas5com

(Originally published in the summer of 2006)

Who is This Ben Kronberg and Why is He So Funny?

2009-07-04T15:42:00.000-07:00

By Brian Polk

Inspiring as much hatred, silence, and outright confusion as he does uncontrollable laughter, Ben Kronberg is rapidly emerging as one of Denver’s most promising stand-up comedians. With subject matter ranging from fast food and bodily discharges to angel abortions and testicular massiveness, the comic won the Comedy Works New Talent Contest as well as several other competitions not really worth mentioning. The love and dedication he invests in his craft is second only to the affection he feels towards his own penis, which is huge. Just don’t ask him what the phrase, “Through the trunk,” means … trust us on this one.
Recently, Kronberg agreed to an interview with The Yellow Rake, but refused to make eye contact or acknowledge our writers’ existence in public. Therefore the interview was conducted by his agent via the “Interweb.” We hope you enjoy it.

What type of psychological make-up must an individual possess to become a stand-up comedian? How did you get into comedy?

You have to be very repetitious and be able to constantly come to terms with the realities of comedy over and over again. The realities are: Every time is different, every crowd is different, you are different—even if you are saying the same thing you said last time. I think if you don't recognize the change in yourself then you might become a stale version of yourself. I got into comedy through music and music open mics. My mom bought me a guitar my last semester of college and I started making up songs. At that time, the songs were about terrorism and war and I parleyed my political songs into songs about poop, pee, semen, and McDonald's.

A comedian and a musician? If you were a candidate in an election year, you would be branded a “flip-flopper.” What gives?

I never set out to do comedy, but the natural flow of my creative juices happened that way. I still play "serious" songs, mostly by myself—to be serious by yourself is okay, but to try to be funny by yourself is sad. You need to be interacting with people to justify funny thoughts. You talk, they listen. You write, they read. You make, they watch. Joking with yourself is like masturbating in front of the mirror: Sometimes it's hot. Plus it's nice to see how you would look while having sex. Whenever I jerk off in front of the mirror, I pretend like I'm having doggystyle sex cause I'm standing up and that makes the most sense.

Do you think there’s a part of the brain that makes you want to become a comedian?

I think funny things might happen in the brain, but I think people who are really funny have it in their soul, just like people who like to kill—it's in their soul. The most extreme parts of any human are in the soul. So yes I would still be funny, ‘cause I'd be drooling and pissing and shitting myself. Retarded people are really good at slapstick.

Ever since you won the Comedy Works New Talent Contest, you’ve been doing unhealthy amounts of blow, jumping from one groupie to the next, and walking around like you own this motherfucker. Even though it must be nice to be a Mile High Comedic Celebrity, the chaos that has become your life can’t possibly make you happy. Could you please expound on your inner-emptiness?

You always want more: pussy, blow, peanut butter—there is never enough. The more you have, the more you want. I think not being satisfied is one of the keys to success. The emptiness that I feel lets me know that there is room for more stuff. I Love to eat, and when I indulge and eat a lot and feel really full, that's when I feel the most empty.

You also won the Denver’s Meanest Person Contest, which strikes me as odd, considering other Denver comics who are much bigger assholes than you (ahem, Greg Baumhauer, ahem). Are you a closet dick that only shines when the occasion calls for it, or what?

I have a dick side to me, and unfortunately it has nothing to do with my dick. I keep my hate for other people secret and repressed. Those other cocksuckers like to rag on people most of the time, which clears them out. So when my dick comes out, it can really shoot a big wad of angry semen.

Are your obsessions with McDonalds and poop directly related? Or are they separate entities each suitable for their own respective discussions?

I like things that are salty, and those two things are the saltiest things I know of. I would gladly humor any discussion about either of those topics separately or together. What I would really prefer to do is eat McDonalds with someone and then go poop next to them in a McDonalds, (If you know anything about McDonalds you know they only ever have one place to poop, no paper towels, and a scratched up mirror so the tandem poop wouldn't be possible. I’m a dreamer’s dreamer). And then we would talk about McDonalds.

I saw you almost get your ass kicked by a member of the crowd who happened to be a Mexican Veteran (perhaps you could expound on this). Obviously some of your comedy is offensive. Is it in a comic’s best interest to remain conscious of the line between edgy and distasteful? Or do you just go with what’s funny regardless?

Funny is usually the focus. Edgy and distasteful are ideas that get projected on the things we do/say. I've done most all of my material in front of my mom, and if she can take it but a Mexi-Vet can't, there is definitely something wrong with him. I think and believe that it is more important to do your comedy in front of people who aren't going to like it. It helps you grow and it helps them grow. I want the ideas behind my jokes to be bigger than the laughs they get. So even if no one laughs, they can't say that was a stupid idea.

Does rocking the Casio keyboard during your set make you Avant-garde or just badass?

I'll take the Avant-Garde over the badass. But if they are both up for grabs I think that would benefit me the most. A lot of comics will dismiss the use of an instrument as a prop, but then those same comics will say, "I have this idea for a song; I think it would be funny." And I'm like, "Yeah, totally," ‘cause I'm a nice guy.

(Originally published April 2006)

The Hirsute Herald of Happy Hooliganism: The Outlandish Antics of Comedian Chuck Roy

2009-07-04T15:21:00.000-07:00

By Brian Polk

It’s 12:45am, Wednesday morning. A vast majority of Denver’s citizens slumber through the darkness in the comfort of familiar beds, blissfully unaware of the city’s burgeoning energy that refuses to subside. As the night thrives, so does its minions: strippers expanding g-strings to make room for dollar bills, cabbies waiting for their next fares, clubbers dancing to get laid, and of course, Chuck Roy verbally abusing every last patron from the stage of the Squire Bar.

For Chuck the night isn’t so much about comedy as it is hanging out with friends and socializing with his comedy peers. After spending the weekend at Comedy Works, opening for nation touring headliners, or closing the show himself, he needs time to relax. Unlike the open-mic comics, Tuesday Night at the Squire means nothing to him—it’s a peripheral grain of sand in an hourglass of comedy. He doesn’t come to this bar to improve his act; he comes to unleash his fury on unsuspecting alcoholics who wanted nothing more than to get a drink.

Although Roy’s open mic set would make any champion of political correctness cringe, the comic has a brighter side. A veteran of comedy, he spent the better part of his twenties chasing his dreams in Los Angeles, which resulted in an impressive resume: routine performances at Hollywood’s world famous Improv, several national tours, a two and a half year stint as the warm-up comedian on Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, and guest appearances on the hit sitcoms Will & Grace and 3rd Rock From The Sun.

After several years in the industry, however, an embittered Chuck left Hollywood for greener pastures. Settling in Colorado, the comic eventually found a home as a featured performer at Denver’s Comedy Works and host of Film on the Rocks at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, as well as writer, producer, and emcee of his own comedy shows, Stand-Up Comedy Battles, and Yell Fest.

The Chuck Roy with a list of accomplishes a mile long in comedy, who habitually insults customers at the Squire Lounge, is a drastic departure from the Republican businessman of his earlier days. Working as an intern for Pat Buchanan’s 1996 presidential campaign, Roy began his political career as an eager, wide-eyed East Coast conservative. Though, after he helped successfully deliver the New Hampshire primary to Buchanan, Chuck’s desire to contribute to a blatantly homophobic campaign at the time when he was coming to terms with his own homosexuality diminished.

“That’s one of the reasons I got into stand-up comedy,” says Roy, who used the craft to purposefully distance himself from his Republican past. He never again became involved with politics.

Roy spent the next few years perfecting his new act in New England comedy clubs before following his dreams to Los Angeles. The move proved to be premature for the fresh comedian, who, “Went out as a kid and couldn’t stand it, so I turned around, went back to New Hampshire, worked on my act, worked in the Boston comedy scene.”

Not long after relocating back east, however, friends of Chuck convinced him to return to California, a move that would ultimately prove successful for the comedian. His accomplishments didn’t come overnight, however. In his first few months in Los Angeles, he routinely found himself in the audience rather than the stage.

“I came back just two weeks after [Will & Grace] started shooting their first season,” he says. “I would go up and watch rehearsals. I would go up and watch tapings and just sit in the audience. That’s where I learned how to do warm up by watching their warm up comedian.”

He didn’t last as merely a spectator for long. After playing a small role in a PlayStation commercial, Roy was recognized as a legitimate actor for hire and gained the attention of Will & Grace writers.

“Eventually Michael Patrick King, who was a writer on the show, had just heard enough about me and for some reason just wrote this part of popcorn vendor for me,” Chuck explains. “The script calls for three facial reactions and one line. And I told them I didn’t think the line was funny on the first day. And they told my friend, ‘If Chuck were to ever say that to another executive producer he’d be fired.’ And I told my friend, ‘Well if you going to hire a comedian, you might want to find out if the comedian thinks it’s funny.’”

Despite his defiance, “They stuck with me. I added a line and we shot. And the next week I was sitting back up in the stands, watching them tape. I never was one trying to push being down on the floor. Eventually I would make it down on the floor.”

Once he appeared on the sitcom, work came easy to the comedian. Managing the nearly impossible task of landing a television appearance without any representation, he acquired the Gersh Agency as his management company immediately. Almost overnight, he was meeting with casting directors and traveling from one audition to the next.

“It’s a process of where you get used to hearing ‘no,’” Roy admits of the seemingly endless auditions.

But he persevered and landed another guest spot on the show, 3rd Rock From The Sun, where he played the dull-witted son of Kathy Bates. And even though he was a virtually unknown actor featured in a guest spot on a hit television show—a blessing for any comedian—Chuck still took it upon himself to show up to rehearsal late and hung over. He eventually walked into a room with a conference table surrounded by increasingly impatient actors.

“Everybody’s gushing over Kathy Bates,” describes Roy. “Everyone was a little bit like, ‘When are we going to start?’ And when I come in, Kathy Bates yells out, ‘This must be my son.’ The trigger word for my character was, ‘Mama’ — this little retarded guy going, ‘Mama,’ all the time. So I went like, ‘Mama,’ and I gave her a big old hug and people laughed. We sat down. I’m next to Kathy Bates with Newman [Wayne Knight] on my right. Lithgow is on the other corner. Across the table is Jane Curtain.”

With acting experience under his belt, Chuck focused on his stand-up, performing regularly at Hollywood’s world famous Improv. Ultimately the comic would reach the crowning achievement of his career in Los Angeles as the warm-up act for the Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, a job that led to his disillusionment and eventual departure from the west coast scene.

“Every one of my friends, especially in the business, especially comedians from back east had been calling me for months telling me, ‘Get the hell out of LA, you sound miserable. You sound horrible.’”

With a destination in mind, Roy planned to leave California in the fall of 2001.

“I flew home [from Denver to LA] on September 9th, 2001,” remembers Chuck. “On September 10th, I went to Kilborn, told the makeup artist, who’s my friend and Craig’s advisor, and told her I’m quitting. And I was going to tell him today. And she said, ‘Wait ‘till Friday. Craig doesn’t like that kind of news on a Monday.’”

After that Tuesday, however, Chuck never had the opportunity to talk to Craig about quitting. In fact, the events of 9/11 forced the weary comedian to remain in Los Angeles.

The same people that told him to leave LA, “Were calling pretty much right after 9/11 going, ‘You have to stay in LA. Keep your job. The cruise ships have shut down. All kinds of comedians are coming home. Any of the touring shows are gone.’ So I had to stay in LA for another year. It was the worst year in my life. Staying at this shitty job with this asshole star.”

Finally in late 2002, Roy left California for the Mile High City, an environment not necessarily conducive to comedy. Although he doesn’t audition for sit coms anymore, he seems comfortable in a town without an established entertainment industry. Since the stand-up scene is largely underground, it allows him the creative freedom to write and produce his own comedy shows. Roy also helps young comedians establish their own open mic rooms—even if his open mic sets are little more than cavalcades of incessant insults.

“When I first got here there wasn’t anything like that,” Chuck admits about the underground comedy. “All the old guys were pretty tired and negative about the way the industry was going and the scene. And I was like, ‘It’s coming here. They’re going to start coming so you better shape up.’”

Sacrificing the momentum of his career and snubbing the opportunities of Los Angeles, Roy enjoys his current situation. Not only has he rejuvenated the city’s veterans, he directs its novices, playing an essential role in the rapidly emerging Denver underground comedic community—a function the comedian no doubt finds satisfying.

"It was referred to me this week as DIY comedy: Do It Yourself comedy," Chuck says about the Denver stand-up community he helped create. "Hell yeah, that's what I'm about."

(Originally published March 2006)