Don Rock

Cover Art
 Special Thanks:
Special thanks to the artists, illustrators,
photographers, and editors who helped out to
get this first issue off the ground.
Don Rock OBSOLETE! cover
Editorial Introduction to Issue #1: They Include:
Life in Post Imperial Amerika 3 Blair Gauntt/Idezin Digital Workgroup,
Peg Dana, Ericka Wildgirl Dana, Eric Houts ,
Ricardo Feral Doopers: Design Beyond Obsolescence 4 Christopher Schipper and:
Will Grant Beerch & Bong: Intoxitocination 5 Becky Danielson
Mick Farren Hard Times at the Aces High 6 (http://beckydanielson.mosaicglobe.com/)
Tobey Anderson
Alissa Bader The Mile High City’s New Green Economy 8 (http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/tobey-anderson.html)
Todd Colby Gas Stations and Wierdos
Electric Pony Light 9
Advertising:
Amy Digi The Demolition of Yankee Stadium 9 Thanks to the advertisers who were willing to
bart plantenga (excerpt from) Beer Mystic: appear in the first issue- For current ad rates and
sizes, please send a request to:
A Novel of Intoxication and Light 10
obmag@feral-tech.com
Mali Delaney Dragon 66 13
Reviews 14 OBSOLETE! is edited and published by Rich Dana
Rich Dana Dumpster-Diver Gardening 15
Robert Dana Blood Harvest 15

visit us online at: http://obsoletemag.blogspot.com/

Pronunciation: äb-sə-lēt
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin obsoletus, from past participle of obsolescere to grow old, become disused,
perhaps from ob- toward + solēre to be accustomed
Date: 1579
1 a : no longer in use or no longer useful <an obsolete word> b : of a kind or style no longer
current : old-fashioned <an obsolete technology>
2 of a plant or animal part : indistinct or imperfect as compared with a corresponding part
in related organisms : vestigial
synonyms see old

OBSOLETE Magazine is a quarterly tabloid

publication in the tradition of the International Times, OZ, The East
Village Other, The Berkely Barb, The Chicago Seed, The Whole Earth
Catalog, PUNK! and the other great underground rags of days past....
We are interested in high-quality poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, com-
ics, photography and other 2D art. Submissions can be on any subject;
however, we are especially interested in work that voices alternative, non-
mainstream, even radical views on politics, technology, the environment,
and modern culture. Poems can be traditional or experimental, fiction of
any genre will be considered, and non-fiction should be fast-paced chal-
lenging.
Please submit no more than four poems, one short story, two REALLY
short stories, or one essay. For visual art, please submit no more than 3
pieces in any one media. Want to pitch a story idea? Contact us at the
address below.
Please send a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) with your work
if you would like it returned. Do not send your only copy! Please do not
send original artwork. We ask for first North American serial rights only.
Copyright reverts to the author upon publication. OBSOLETE compen-
sates it’s contributors- please contact us for current rates.

OBSOLETE Magazine is a publication of OBSOLETE Inc. , PO Box 72, Victor, IA, 52347. obmag@feral-tech.com.
 If you are a perceptive and relatively
unmedicated reader, you may have noticed
by now that this is not an “e-zine” or a blog.
This is a real, turn your fingers black, pulpy
paper product. If you have the curiosity to
explore further, you may notice that it is, in
fact, an old-school newsprint tabloid, com-
plete with slapdash layout, smudgy printing
and inflammatory rhetoric.
You may feel that a publication like this
is an anachronistic throwback, a vestigial
appendage on the body of the digital info-
organism, a bit of paper best suited to line
the cat box or wrap a fish. However, it’s not
just the newspaper that has become obso-
lete. In post-post-post-modern society even
the term “obsolete” is becoming obsolete-
products are obsolete before they hit the
market-place, technology is only good as
long as its replacement is in beta-testing.
Maybe it’s time to re-examine the printed
word. Perhaps the newspaper is for the
“early adopters” of post-apocalyptic technol-
ogy.
For now, I hope you will find it more of
an informational eddy, a small backwater in
the info-stream where ideas can slow down
and swirl around before being used or
disposed of. On the other hand, if this paper
is used for nothing more than lining the
cat box, I posit that it has been more useful
than 99% of the web content that you were
exposed to this week.
In the early part of the 20th century, Har-
old Innis, a Canadian media theorist and
predecessor of Marshall McCluhan, postu-
lated that great civilizations were those that
balanced “time-binding” media (which re-
tain ideas and history), and “space-binding”
media (which allows ideas to travel rapidly).
He felt, back in the 50’s, that western soci-
ety was relying too much on time-binding porations and “financial instruments” take
media like radio and television, and that on life, procreating through phallic 1s and
the over-exposure was leading to a culture yonic 0s in their digital primordial ooze. No
where “...the emphasis on change is the only wonder the late great comedian Bill Hicks
permanent characteristic.” He felt that this called humanity “just a virus - with shoes...”
trend would kill shared experience and local “Okay, Captain Bringdown,” you say,
identity and create and atmosphere of para- “...but I’m just trying to get by here!” You
noia and rigid political militarization. No are doing the best that you can. We all are.
one knows what Innis would have thought What is an under-employed hipster with
of the internet, but despite all of the great an over-extended credit card to do? More
gifts of modern technology, some of Innis’ rushing ahead just seems to get us where we
warnings seem to be coming true. Despite are right now. Perhaps it’s time for a lateral
the gushing flow of “free” information, cul- move.
tural ridgidity appears to be setting in. Instead of sending new technology to the
As we go to print on the premier issue “developing world”, let’s look at the adapta-
of OBSOLETE Magazine, “The Amerikan tion strategies that the 3rd world has adopted
Empire” is in full decline. The earth seems to survive the foreign technology onslaught.
to be facing daily major assaults from its What we can learn? Let’s dumpster-dive our
most troublesome species. The catastrophic culture and see what the corporatocracy has
oil-rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has offi- left behind. Make something new out of the
cially eclipsed the Exxon-Valdez spill as our empty vacu-form plastic package that they
nations biggest man-made environmental sold you your life in.
disaster. Midwestern farmers report an on-
slaught of herbicide-resistant “Super-weeds”
- the product of over-reliance on chemical
inputs in monoculture farming. Even hu-
man attempts to adopt “green lifestyles”
have unintended negative consequences- Eu-
ropean drivers thirst for non-fossil-fuel-based
biodiesel is causing rainforest deforestation
throughout Indonesia because of the in-
creased demand for palm oil.
Even human interactions with their own
kind fail to live up to the definition of “civi-
lization”. The human race has taken the idea
of “evolution” in directions that Darwin nev-
er could have predicted, choosing to contin-
ue to leave the physical realm to the mercy
of medieval feudal fiefdoms, while focusing
on evolving the mutant offspring of their
own misguided attempts at god-hood. Cor-
by Ricardo Feral
There are columns in nearly every magazine espousing the latest
gimcracks and geegaws and a myriad of websites dedicated to review-
ing the latest new cars, motorcycles, running shoes, home entertain-
ment systems, cellular phones, computers, home appliances and sex
toys.
I love gadgets and I love reading about them. I like having the
latest cool stuff as much as the next person- but there are those ob-
jects that transcend trend, that exist in a time-capsule of near-perfect
design. Over time, they may be tweaked, overclocked or souped-up,
but their source-code remains intact. Their simplicity, functionality,
reliability and replicability make them cultural icons and their very
images become memes.
The futurist Ray Kurzweil once commented; “I’m an inventor. I
became interested in long-term trends because an invention has to
make sense in the world in which it is finished, not the world in which
it is started.” Throughout history, there have been examples of in-
ventions whose usefulness has long out-lived its inventor. Here are a
few examples of 20th Century designs of the highest order..... In this
new era, when the “Amerikan Empire” is sliding into decline and the
only things we seem to be able to manufacture are high fructose corn
syrup, “financial instruments” and porn, it might be helpful to look
more closely at gadgets that really work.....
The Safety Razor
Inspired by a woodworker’s plane, the first safety razor was invented by
in the late 1700’s in France. The design was perfected during the 1800’s by
British and German companies, but it was not until a traveling salesman
from Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin, King Camp Gillette, patented his design
for the double-edged razor in 1904 that the modern safety razor chal-
lenged the popularity of the straight razor. By securing a contract with
the U.S. Military to supply the Gillette safety razor to each and every G.I.
during World War II, these virtually indestructible little tools became
the standard issue shaving implement world-wide for decades. Wilkin-
son Sword, a British company, introduced the stainless steel blade in the
1960s, significantly improving blade life, as well as creating an iconic
object that has become an international symbol for “danger.” Adopted
by 1970’s punks as a symbol of the movement, the double edged razor
blade has been adapted for use as drug paraphernalia, jailhouse shiv, and
professional wrestling blood-letting tool.
With the advent of the era of cheap, plastic and disposable, U.S. manu-
facturing of the Gillette-style safety razor has ceased, but they are still
found at nearly every American drugstore or grocery. Because of the
longevity of the handle as well as the steel blades, they continue to be
manufactured and used around the planet and have, arguably, the lowest
environmental impact of any shaver, with the exception of the traditional
straight razor.
The Dymo Label Maker
If you are over 25 years old and live in a country that uses the English
alphabet, you probably have used a Dymo label maker at some point
in your life. The hard plastic embossed labels have adorned everything
from file cabinets to sports equipment, lockers to utility panels, note-
books to foreheads- from their invention in 1958 until the advent of digi-
tal labelers in the mid 80’s. The daisy-wheeled pistol-shaped labelers and
their shiny, brightly colored strips with raised white capital letters may
not be as popular now as in their heyday, but they are still available- in
new, ergonomic designs. The classic models can still be found on ebay,
at yard sales and flea markets everywhere.
The peel-and-stick plastic labels still have many advantages over their
modern counterparts- they require no electricity to produce, the plastic
labels don’t fade when exposed to the elements, in fact, they are virtu-
ally indestructible. Not to mention that they just look so damned cool. So
cool, in fact, that the look of the Dymo embossed label has been dupli-
cated in several font designs, like “Punch-label” and “Plastique”. The font
suggests a low-tech, retro, DIY attitude- and we here at OBSOLETE are
down with that.
The 3-speed Bicycle
Before the 1970s explosion of Japanese road bikes with derailleur
gears, the English-style 3-speed ruled the roads. In fact, the 3 speed
roadster accounts for more than ½ of the bicycles ever built. The Raleigh
DL-1, with it’s fully enclosed chain-case, rod and roller brakes and giant
28 inch wheels made it the perfect all-terrain bike of it’s time. Designed
in 1913 for the British military, it eventually served across the empire as
the bike of choice for police, mailmen, couriers and commuters from
Kingston to Shanghai. The first manufacturing facility built in post-im-
perial India was a bicycle factory, which still produces an exact replica of
the DL-1. Across Asia, the English-style roadster is the platform of choice
for cargo bikes and pedi-cabs.
At the heart of every English-style 3 speed is the Sturmey-Archer 3
speed hub. The fully enclosed hub is nearly impervious to the elements,
and extremely rugged. To disassemble and reassemble the planetary
gears of a 3 speed hub is a lesson in physics, and some might say a peak
into the clockwork of the universe (okay, mostly old hippie bike mechan-
ics say that...). Many variations have been built with up to 7 speeds, and
the “DynoHub” includes an AC generator for powering lights. In Ameri-
ca, 3-speed bikes built in the UK with Sturmey-Archer hubs were sold up
until the late 1970s, labeled Robin Hood, Sears brand, and even K-Mart.
Easily found at second hand stores for $50 or less, these workhorses will
still out-ride and out-last a cheap mountain bike from Walmart.
continued. . .
The AK-47
In the movie “Lord of War”, the protagonist Yuri Orlov, played by
Nicholas Cage lays it all out; “Of all the weapons in the vast Soviet ar-
senal, nothing was more profitable than Avtomat Kalashnikova model
of 1947. More commonly known as the AK-47, or Kalashnikov. It’s the
world’s most popular assault rifle. A weapon all fighters love. An elegant-
ly simple 9 pound amalgamation of forged steel and plywood. It doesn’t
break, jam, or overheat. It’ll shoot whether it’s covered in mud or filled
with sand. It’s so easy, even a child can use it; and they do. The Soviets
put the gun on a coin. Mozambique put it on their flag. Since the end of
the Cold War, the Kalashnikov has become the Russian people’s greatest
export. After that comes vodka, caviar, and suicidal novelists. One thing
is for sure, no one was lining up to buy their cars.”
Designed by a wounded tank commander and aspiring agricultural
equipment designer named Mikhail Kalashnikov, the AK-47 is perhaps
the quintessential product of the 20th century. In an earnest attempt to
create a weapon that would defend his Communist homeland from the
aggression of fascist Germany, Kalashnikov unwittingly invented one
of the key elements in the blueprint for Soviet expansion. By making
the AK-47 design a sort of “open source” technology, the USSR licensed
the manufacturing of AK-47s to facilities in Finland, Hungary, Bulgaria,
China, North Korea, Egypt, Iraq, and other countries. Today, it is estimat-
ed that there is a one Kalashnikov-style rifle in use for every 66 people
on earth.
As Yuri Orlov points out, the very image of the AK is a symbol of
revolution worldwide, and a symbol of the business of revolution. It is
the world’s deadliest meme. In another Hollywood film, “Jackie Brown”,
Samuel L. Jacksons character Ordell says; “ AK-47. The very best there
is. When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherfucker in the
room, accept no substitutes.”

HARD TIMES AT THE ACE HIGH
by Mick Farren
Joey had finally and reluctantly sold the sunburst Fender to the
Chinese kid. In the end it had to be the Chinese kid. He was the
only one who’d answered Joey’s ad on Craigslist who could meet
the asking price. Only the Chinese kids – the kids who’d arrived
with their parents after The Crash – had money any more, and, for
once, Joey actually had enough cash to drink in the bar.
Across the street from the Ace High Tavern, the unemployed
boys and girls were, as usual, lounging in the doorway of the der-
elict, boarded-up movie theatre, passing round a bottle. In the good
times the movie house had been called The Gem Cinema, but
people had started to forget the name after the bank had sold off
the neon sign – again to the Chinese, who seemed to be collecting
everything that had once been America. Although the Ace High
remained open, Harry the Owner had also sold his sign, the four
giant playing cards that made up the electric poker hand from
which the bar’s name was derived. A Chinacorp exec had made
Harry an offer he wouldn’t refuse. His patrons protested, but Harry
the Owner had merely shrugged, claiming the sign had to go any-
way because keeping it on added too much to his already crippling
energy bill.
The boys and girls in the movie theatre entrance would rou-
tinely drink themselves stupid on some really nasty shit before
they got too crazy-loud and the cops rousted them out of there.
The stuff called Little Demon was among the nastiest, and came
up from up El Salvador or some place south where the poverty was
even worse. The boys and girls bought it in flat plastic pints at the
99 Cent Store. The raw amber rotgut was made from corn syrup
and heaven knew what else, but, in these hard times, alcoholics
managed as best they could, even down to doing shots from clear
bottles with no labels and dubious purity; firewater by any other
name or none. And Joey would have been right there with them if
he hadn’t unloaded the guitar.
Joey had half hoped that he might slip into the Ace High with-
out being noticed by his once and future friends. He knew the boys
and girls would, after a while, undoubtedly drift across the street,
following him into the bar and hustling him to buy them a drink
in a glass. His plans were thwarted, however, when Tommy No
Dime looked up, spotted him and waved. Joey noticed that Lothar
was among the wino crew in the doorway, passing the pints in the
Illustration by Becky Danielson
paper bags. Lothar didn’t come out too much any more. He spent
most of his time just sitting around the house hallucinating. Peo-
ple adapted differently to the post-Crash world, but Lothar wasn’t
adapting at all. After the Palin assassination, the merciless revalua-
tion of the Yuan, and the inevitability of Terminal Tuesday, every-
one had known there was no going back. Most did what they could,
and made the best of it. Lothar had trouble finding any best to it at
all, and Joey had ten bucks on him in the Ace High suicide pool.
As he pulled open the street door, Joey glanced up at the sky be-
fore he made the transition into the dark interior. He never ceased
to be amazed how so much still stayed the same even when life
was so very different. The sky was still blue. The sun still shone.
The wind continued to blow in from the west, and the crows still
cawed and flapped on Elm Street in the quiet of the city dawn. The
lines outside the State Relief Office, and the wreckers hauling away
the abandoned cars could almost be forgotten. Somewhere in his
subconscious Joey figured a depression should look like a depres-
sion. It should be shrouded in a perpetual grey overcast, with one
dismal day following the next. He expected a dark age to be dark,
and resented sunny days, when the air was close to clean, as a cruel
tease.
Then the door closed behind Joey and the gloom of the womb-
like bar, with its enfolding smell of spilled beer and industrial-
strength cleaning products, made it easier to put aside his illogical
resentment of nature. He swung onto a stool, pulled out his newly
acquired roll, and placed a twenty on the bar with ostentatious
care, making it clear to Harry the Owner that he was in funds.
Harry was leaning on the far end of the bar, in conversation with
the elderly man with the long wild hair who went by the name of
Old Beau, and the woman in the silk shirt and leather jeans whose
name of Magda, but when Joey flashed the cash, Harry straight-
ened and moved to take care of his business. “What’s it to be,
young man?”
“A shot and a draught.”
“You want the good stuff?”
Joey regretfully indicated otherwise. “Hell no. I’ll go to the well.”
Harry placed a shot glass on the bar, and pulled up a bottle from
bellow. The label read Ancient Exceptional. Harry was a master at
locating supplies of really cheap, really unpleasant whiskey. There
had been a time when Joey had drunk Jack Daniels, but those days
had long passed. Indeed, in recent months, Jack Daniels, and other
continued. . . .
old friends from the days of jobs and credit cards, were becoming “There’s not so many of them packing for The Rapture any
hard to find even if you had the exorbitant price. The best intelli- more.”
gence was that the Chinese were simply buying up all the Jack be- Magda gestured for a refill. “Hysteria burns itself out.”
fore it so much as left Lynchburg. It was as though they had a lien The old man was drinking Dewar’s. Somehow Old Beau always had
on the good stuff. If you asked in the liquor store, the kid behind cash, although nobody knew its source. Some claimed he’d been a
the counter would like as not tell you it was “on backorder.” Back- respected artist back in the day, but what kind of artist was a mat-
order had become part of their lives and their daily vocabulary. ter of debate “The Russians sat about for more than a decade after
When there was no toilet paper in the store, it was on backorder. the fall of Communism, blinking and wondering what the fuck
If there were no light bulbs, they were on backorder. Scarcity and happened to them.”
shortage were the way of the world. At that moment, the lights in the Ace High flickered and dimmed,
Harry set the shot of Ancient Exceptional in front of Joey and the TV tiled-out, and Magda’s Cheepad fluttered, all in unison.
started to fill a beer glass with Pabst from the tap, at the same Everyone paused, wondering if it was the start of a rolling black-
time, he resumed his previous conversation with Old Beau. “You out, or maybe server failure. No one wanted to speculate on worse.
hear anything of Charlie?” Then the power supply or the aberrant server seemed to right itself
Old Beau shrugged. “Charlie’s out in the hills again. Told us and the various screens returned to normal, proving it had been
he was going fishing, but we all knew he was expecting the black just one of those glitches that could never be explained, although
helicopters. No one’s ever been able to convince him they’re not Charlie might have claimed it was print-and-forget, brainwash mo-
coming because the world doesn’t give two fucks about America ment. “You figure we got a decade of this?”
any more. I mean, who’d want to take over this mess?” “When the Roman Empire collapsed there were five hundred years
“The Chinese seem to.” of chaos and barbarism.”
“Well that’s the wheel of the fucking dharma, isn’t it?” “But when the British Empire collapsed they grew their hair,
Joey had heard variations of the same conversation too many bought cheap guitars, and handed us the Beatles.”
times before, and his attention refocused on the shot in front of “What do you think, kid?”
him. The temptation was to down it one glorious old-school swal- Joey’s mind had drifted away from the thread of the conversa-
low, but common sense dictated he pace himself and limit the first tion. He’d been imagining Magda, in dom corset and heels, plying
hit to no more than half the measure. The last thing he needed her vice in her rumored dungeon, but the direct question jerked
was to end the night messed up, broke, and with no memory. He him back to the present and he answered without thinking. “I just
knocked back half the glass and gasped. Ancient Exceptional was sold my guitar.”
truly awful. “Damn, Harry, white lightening in a mason jar would Magda sadly sighed. “That doesn’t bode well.”
be better than this.”
Harry winked. “You should have been here Tuesday.” © Mick Farren, 2010
Joey grimaced and quickly swallowed a mouthful of watery
Pabst. Then he let out a long breath and allowed himself time to Mick Farren is a legendary poet, musician, author, critic, activist, countercul-
take a leisurely look around at the interior of the bar and its deni- tural icon, and one of the last true gonzo journalists. As lead singer and chief
zens. Two badly tattooed girls from the outside of town were nurs- anarchist of the legendary Social Deviants, Farren helped blaze the trail for the
advent of punk rock. He has co-written songs for the Pink Fairies, Motorhead and
ing beers, sharing a table and a cigarette. They were young, prob- Hawkwind, as well as writing over 40 books, including science fiction novels and
ably not much above drinking age, wearing too much makeup, non-fiction. Farren served as writer and editor of IT, the International Times,
and failing to hide their anxiety. Most likely they hoped a couple one of the UK’s premiere underground newspapers.
better-heeled guys would come by to keep them amused, pick up Mick Farren blogs at Doc40.blogspot.com
the tab, and maybe feed them. Bad times bore down, even on good
time girls. Their anxiety stemmed from the fact that no better-
heeled guys had so far materialized, and sooner or later Harry
would expect them to buy another drink. Harry cut women far
more slack than the men because they were good for business,
but no one hung out in the Ace High indefinitely on just one
beer. Joey was half tempted to move over to talk to them, but they
looked dumb and he knew would end up buying their booze. Later
for that. Right then Joey was more interested in the other woman
in the place.
Magda was probably forty, but she looked good on it, with her
mane of red hair and very noticeable body. Stories circulated that
she was a working woman, and doing well in comparison to most.
The consensus of rumor was that she turned tricks as pro-dom
maybe over in Shelbyville – chaining, flogging, and cash-transac-
tion humiliating the newly arrived salary men from Chinacorp
– running her own dungeon, paying off the cops and the Chinese
liaison agents to keep everything plumb level and on the square.
If it was true, Joey found it admirable. Now America had become
little more than a Chinese yard sale, Beijing might as well take the
kink along with everything else.
The stories about Magda were highly plausible, and the leather
jacket with the scarlet pentacle on the back that was draped over
her shoulders was more than enough proof that Magda had money
coming in from someplace, and also that she had a taste for the
dramatic. She’d looked up briefly when Joey first came in, and
Harry moved to serve him. Since then, though, she hadn’t paid
him any attention, staying in closed conversation with Harry and
Old Beau, and, at the same time, idly swishing a Cheepad. As far
as Joey could hear, they were swapping stories about the extreme
times in the immediate aftermath of The Crash.
Magda let out a wry laugh. “Folk were reverting to some ata-
vistic, splatter-movie metaphysics back there for a while.” Her
voice her voice was low and nicotine husky, but with a definite and
unmistakable authority that was maybe an off-duty holdover from
her alleged profession.
Old Beau nodded. “That’s a fact.
“You remember when those Pentecostal assholes started
painting the buildings red? That was fucking eerie.”
Harry poured Old Beau a fresh drink. “I’m glad that shit bot-
tomed out.”
THE MILE-HIGH CITY’S NEW GREEN ECONOMY Photos by
Alissa Bader

When Alissa suggested a photo feature on the Medical Marijuana Clinics of Denver, I loved the idea.
Denver has been in the news a lot lately for it’s burgeoning MMJ scene- in fact, it’s quickly becoming known
as “America’s Cannabis Capital”. Politicians like Senator Chris Romer (a Democrat candidate for Mayor) want
to pass new laws to establish cadres of gun-toting enforcers with the assignment of regulating the clinics into
oblivion. For now, patients will still have a natural and safe alternative to the addictive and dangerous drugs
pushed on them by Big Pharma.

Interesting side note: News sources report that as of January, 2010, there were nearly 400 legal MMJ dispensa-
ries in the Mile High City, outnumbering Starbuck’s franchises in the entire state of Colorado by nearly 2-to-
one. Can you say “Grass-Roots Capitalism?”
-----
Alissa Bader has dedicated herself to spending a lifetime hanging out with those people her mother once warned her
about. Alissa also purchased her first package of bacon, ever, last May. She lives and works in Denver, Colorado
 Gas Stations & Weirdos Electric Pony Light

Oh blue flower thigh you are silk and
matted with blood and fur.
The bus seats are lavish and primed
for your sweet flesh while jumpers
swoon over your eagle parts. Yes!
Think claw think gangrene
all misanthropic and molecular then
reach into the bed: red rim
around beet piss. From Brooklyn
a caller i.d. illuminates the welts
enough to spark principle
to sit and think or scoop chocolate
from a bin of thistles. I am moving
into the new cape with a tenderness
you know from way before you were born.
I was walking down Bergen Street
with a capsule comment: my lungs
want to breathe you in while my body
brays at the open sky in a calm
and reassuring way. An android full
of nut butters and quinine. Do you feel
calm and reassured? Is that my hand
you’re holding? I want you to hold something
cool and silver and instructive.
Follow me home so I can call the police
and tell them you’re finally here for me.
This is what I look like when you’re not looking
at me I feel feverish my eyes are bigger in your
electric pony light. There will never be more of me
than you can handle ever, I swear. Leave the heavy lifting
to my sturdy legs. Parts of me are strewn on the floor,
I can pick them up later. Leather wristband, cold cream,
and my lost in space feeling marking what remains of the morning:
you and your helium will. It’s curtains for the
sheepish and sullen. They can suck it. What I’m trying
to say is: morning with you is a luxury in the puzzle
of my day. Give me the soft solace of your arms.
All amber-scented and clear-headed,
you move through me like a bright tiger
jolts the green with her stripes in the woods.
You might be more awake than even I could imagine
but the way coffee tastes in your mouth
when I lean in makes my spine buzz with jazz.
When you’re not looking I’m right here.
Todd Colby has published four books of poetry: Ripsnort (1994), Cush (1995), Riot in
the Charm Factory: New and Selected Writings(2000), and Tremble & Shine (2004),
all published by Soft Skull Press. Todd has performed his poetry on PBS and MTV,
and his collaborative books and paintings with artist David Lantow can be seen in the
Brooklyn Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art special collections libraries.
Todd serves on the Board of Directors for The Poetry Project, where he has also taught
several poetry workshops, and he posts new work on gleefarm.blogspot.com.

The Demolition of Yankee Stadium

The Demolition of Yankee Stadium

Amy DiGi studied at the Art Stu-

dents League of New York with
Mary Beth McKenzie and Joseph
Peller. She received her MFA in
Painting from Lehman College
and her BFA in Drawing and Art/
Design Education from Pratt In- In the spring of 2010, the old Yankee Stadium in the Bronx was demolished. As fans of the Bronx Bombers stood
stitute. Ms. DiGi is a United States by as “The house that Ruth built” was reduced to rubble, one die-hard fan worked to capture the moment.
Coast Guard Artist. She lives and “ Men had little tears squeaking out the corners of their eyes,” says Painter Amy DiGi, who furiously painted and
works in New York City. sketched the demolition. “I was the only broad painting on the platform... I’m thinking, ‘what were those bitch-asses
thinking in that board room when they decided to tear it down?’ “
http://amydigiart.blogspot.com/
Her pictures say something about the event that news photos can never capture.
Beer Mystic:
A Novel of Inebriation & Light
by bart plantenga
Beer Mystic is a unique literary adventure that will take you on the
longest, rowdiest literary pub crawl ever. Follow the Beer Mystic’s
story around the world through excerpts in a global network of
host magazines. For a complete list of excerpts, visit
http://bartyodel3.wordpress.com/about/
Furman Pivo believes he [plus beer] may be the cause of a rash of
streetlight outages. This sense of empowerment transforms him
into the Beer Mystic. He has a mission and a mandate. Or does he?
In any case, 1987 NYC will never be the same and the rest is history
or myth or delusion.
Beer Mystic Excerpts #37-8
In an unpublished piece, Luc Sante writes: “These inscriptions,
these erasures, these black holes that dot the lower end of Manhat-
tan like empty stars colored black by a 4-year-old are not just about
war, but about what Virilio in his Guerre et cinéma calls the guerre
lumière, the war of light, which dates back to the earliest use of the
military searchlight in 1904. During World War I, lights aided in-
fantry movements. While during World War II, warplanes created
lightning flashes, flares, to illuminate the earth to enable them to
take essential reconnaissance photos.
We are now witnessing a similar war – albeit within
a more personal or circumscribed landscape – along the Bowery
backbone with arteries radiating East and West like lit or darkened
ribs. What we are left with is sensory hints of an ebony and ivory
conflagration where the preserving streetlights salvage property
at the expense of dream, and the darkness is a return to the pri-
mal dream at the expense of property – darkness encourages both
dreams and petty criminality.
However, newfound corridors of darkness unleashes
fear and nurtures new industries in its wake, not to mention new
security and surveillance technologies. This process highlights
lighting’s almost Manifest Destiny-level innate colonization ten-
dencies that may end up transgressing its supposed purpose and
benefit to humans. As the Beer Mystic [nom du guerre] seems to
be saying: Aufklärung is German for both ‘Enlightenment,’ and, in
military circles, for reconnaissance, surveillance.
A consequence of too much light over-exposing our
present reality is manifested in the condition we commonly refer
to as information overload – more images than the eyes can con-
sume.
What I suspect he further desires to reveal – so far as
we can ascribe it with conscious purpose – is the tautology of how
excessive wattage blinds and its glare blurs. Blinded by the light is
right.
In the name of bringing things to light, seeing, and
illumination many crimes are committed – see totalitarianism,
fascism, et al. By putting out a few lights here and there he simply
proposes that we keep lights down to an organic and harmonious
equilibrium [he advocates atmospheric lighting – candles – and
NOT pitch darkness] thus encouraging our eyes to see more and
stimulate our other under-utilized and withering senses.
Light, ironic as it may seem and despite its histori-
cally good image, and not darkness, stimulates the very conditions
for the destruction of society and light itself. As Horkheimer and
Adorno noted in their Dialectic of Enlightenment: ‘The Enlight-
enment has always aimed at liberating men from fear and estab-
lishing their sovereignty. Yet the fully enlightened earth radiates
disaster triumphant’.”
The Rum Seer offered me swallows of rum from her mouth.
Like a raven feeds her young. Deep into the craw. She was certainly
beginning to show me she was worthy of my gratitude.
“This is MY black hole.” She ran her fingers through her
hair. “Absorbs all light, all looks. I only wear black. Black lingerie.
Black sucks the false gaiety out of the world. Bright shit’s just a
redundancy of false hopes.”
“You sound like the Amish.” I opened my second bottle
– this time with my teeth. Her eyes did not light up. “Like the Ha-
sidim.”
“The body’s 93% water,” she said matter-of-factly. She knew
it was only 67% water but was exaggerating for effect.
“But mine’s 50% beer.” We wound through more black-eye
sites; the streetlights in front of the police precinct on East 20th St.,
which I tried to convince her were like “an audacious and cathartic
liberation” like a Pollock, like graffiti, like... alas...
“What d’you do for female companionship?”
“I get by. I sometimes count on magazines.” I lied, thinking
of Nice, Elsa, Jude, Rita, Djuna…
And we walked into the talk and somehow ended up fac-
ing Macy’s window with its “Golden Age of Classicwear” diorama,
revealing an age when everybody was happy, dressed nice and sat
around a fireplace and a board game.
Suddenly she grabbed my beer and, in a fit of pique, pushed
my head back with a forearm to the chin and poured it no-non-
sense down her greedy gullet.
So, I grabbed her flask and returned the favor. The orality
of drinking suddenly looked like the orality of sex. And suddenly
we’d progressed from a policy of Mutual Deterrence to the most
intimate of bodily fluid exchanges.
“Oblivion; it’s my specialty,” she declared. Running on
empty, we went to a Korean 24-hour deli to refuel. They’re always
24 hour. Even at three a.m. you’ll see somebody squatting out-
side, trimming green beans, washing bokchoy. Each Korean deli
contains well over 10,000 anti-shoplifting watts, so entering here
means crossing over into enemy territory.
“Heard they’re all Moonies, you know, right-wing pod
people.” She put on her shades, covered her exposed skin as we
roamed the aisles. I squinted as I scrounged for change to pay for
two Rolling Rock long-necks. She protected her face from the rav-
ages of redundant light with the collar of her jacket.
“Figh dolla,” said the man behind the counter.
“Wha’! Rolling Rock’s not a foreign beer. Come ON!”
“Figh dolla.”
“It’s from friggin’ Pennsylvania! One of the original of the 13
United States of this here America.”
“Figh dolla.” He was glancing left and right for back up.
“Let’s just get outa here, Furman.” The light was detrimen-
tal to her skin. Fluorescent light is said to promote acne.
“Hey, if I was fuckin’ Axl Rose or fuckin’ Travis Bickle or
fuckin’ Mickey Mantle or fuckin’ Gypsy fuckin’ Rose Lee you’d...”
The deli man reached under the counter.
“Just pay’m. Come on let’s vacate these premises. I mean,
why don’tchu just send a whole string of these delis the way of
your street lights?”
“Maybe I should.” We waltzed around the corner. She
hummed a tune in back of Macy’s by the loading docks where I
opened the bottle with my teeth and handed it to her. Whereupon
she took the other bottle, reached down under her tight black
skirt and opened the long neck with her vagina. And I heard what
sounded like bells wrapped around the necks of distant sheep.
“I think the good shepherd’s comin’ our way...”
“Tha’s me.” She showed me the little brass bells that dan-
gled from the pierced labia. She smiled because she knew exactly
how spooked I’d be.
“It’s so I always know when someone’s fuckin’ with me.”
“It don’t hurt?”
“No, if you got the technique down. Ring mah bee-ee-elll…”
“I know somebody that just did the same... was there some-
thin’ in People Magazine...? And you know that they’re twist-off,
right?”
“I don’t believe in twist-off.”
She took her bottle and stuck the entire neck down her
throat and chugged the whole cold thing. In seconds flat. Chucked
the empty against a brick wall. This is how woman provokes me
best. I made an amorous lunge, which she dodged. “If you even
could.”
“Could what?”
“Be fuckin’ me...”
“Yea, well, none of this is exactly me, myself.” I had to be
humble. “I mean, this could go on forever,” I warned.
“Listen, I’m too impatient for forever. I want EVERYthing
now. So is it you, then, doin’ the black-eyes? And if not, stop claim-
ing them for yerself. People used to live forever before religion
told them there were two worlds. Part one, here; part two, there;
now and later. Dead and gone.” I nodded knowingly not to betray
ignorance. “Tha’s when churches went into business.” She seemed
continued. . .
to know a lot. But wanted to know even more. in the physics of inertia. Hope and glue. Naiveté and mistaken pur-
“Monks’ve been brewing liqueurs outa anything since who pose. ‘Keep moving,’ I remember him saying, ‘so things don’t latch
knows when.” on to you – laws, wives, preconceptions, jobs, looters, artists, and
“Tell me somethin’ I don’t already know.” We continued to dust.’ He has, I s’pose, learned the art of the dodge and bob – ap-
wander a precarious path uptown. pearing to move while standing perfectly still, even to the point of
“I was Mata Hari in a former life. Plus I used to be scared appearing to be someone, someone of substance. I am reminded of
of the dark. The unknown eats away at you. Things move cuz yer a quote I came across in Peter L. Wilson’s Sacred Drift by a Muslim
mind makes telephone poles follow you. Half the world’s animals heretic, I think named Ibn somebody: “Bedouins are more disposed
are nocturnal. I know cuz I used to be a bat in a former life.” to courage than sedentary people” basically, he goes, because
“Before or after Mata Hari?” wanderers don’t depend on laws that destroys our will to resist.
“Before... I hate people with tans. I love jazz Negroes.” So, with that in mind, I will give him the benefit of the doubt. So I
“Me too. Although I don’t know any.” Well, Nice, but I am think something is happening with his black-eyes although at the
not talking about her. time I was holding my cards
“When I do the sex close to the bosom and so I was
thing and it’s good, I see phos- not ready to admit this. I think
phenes. You know, those de- it’s on the skin stretched across
lirious fireworks of the soul his six-foot frame – he’s much
projected on the backs of our taller emotionally by the way,
eyelids. And then I pass out when he’s wearing his big black
– into delicious blackness.” boots – where the alchemy
“Sounds like epilepsy to takes place, where substance
me.” We tugged at and under goes insubstantial, fact melts
and inside one another on the into rumor, and all phenomena
proverbial steps – alas – down transform into delusion. Now
to her A train. ask me how I know all this. Or
She crushed my nose is this just all about men?”]
into her hirsute armpit. Hair
made her feel more European. Her mouth pulled you
I tasted the sweat – sodium into her face, a whirlpool
chloride, lactic acid, traces of that wrung my dragging soul
potassium, magnesium. around the mischievous fea-
She rubbed her knuck- tures of her face. A mouth
les on the seam of my crotch always busy. A mouth that
until she had a brush burn to sucked the dials off the clock,
show me. Misshapen lust hid- the fingers off my hand, like
den inside the blurred flailing there was no soup nor tomor-
– going nicely nowhere. Pass- row. A mouth that enveloped
ersby confused us for assault my identity in the surface
and battery. But where could rapture of her face. Her tongue
our kind of reeling lead? Did it like the first darter perch I ever
need to go somewhere? caught, dangling from my line
“How do I know like in Bear Mountain. And then she
yer the one responsible for all mysteriously left me standing
this... this stuff... that like hap- there as she retreated down the
pens?” subway station stairs with great
“The black-eyes?” haste. The smile was certainly
Illustration by Tobey Anderson
“Yea, like how do I know her favorite wound. It dug up
it’s you and not just chance or solar flares? Or we see only what we bones like a dog full of jazz.
wanna see, like predictable coincidences that we give meaning.” I didn’t notice until I got home – me and this big Bozo face
“And sometimes we don’t even see that... Listen, I do it for full of lipstick. And so this is why people on the 2 a.m. streets were
myself and for anyone who wants to live in the low light, you snickering. Or maybe it was blood or something. Others may have
know, like atmospheric lighting where we all look and feel better, wondered what new fashion sub-cult I was loyal to and whether
that grey area where things happen.” they were early witnesses to a new trend. What new club I could
“That’s very magnanimous – and retrospective of you.” lead them to.
“I don’t do it to impress girls.” Once in my new place I realize I never got around to tell-
“I’m no girl.” Whereupon she began to describe her “sous ing the Rum Seer about my room, the checkerboard linoleum...
sol” again, this time as a place I might never escape from, a dark I listened to my messages, again only one – from Nice, “‘There
cave done in “velvet underground” and day-glo black velvet paint- is nothing wrong / with sobriety in moderation.’ That’s poet John
ings. Basement windows painted black. Her “piece of death.” Where Ciardi. I see you with my eyes closed right now and I’m wondering
she’d feed me exotic patés from her mouth. Where she becomes an where you are.”
animal of another species communing with her Nico, Joy Division, I watch the long artificially illuminated skies scrape across
and Sisters of Mercy discs – “morbid dance music for the dying New Jersey. There is new grafitti on the corrugated walls of the
and other undergrad existentialists with hairstyles.” A touchy-feely empty warehouse across the way: IYNIKE and under it SAM
bower full of empty psychotropic prescription bottles, glowing COOKE (33) MURDERD 1964. I’d like to tell her about the timeline
skeletons dangling from her pipes. of events in my life in blue and mysteries I’d unraveled in red that
“I’ve draped various tomb rubbings from the pipes, which I I’d strung along my wall and decorated with salvaged beer labels
got by going to cemeteries in Queens, where I rub crayons and pas- from my Euro-pilgrimage. And the map of NYC with little pushpin
tels over a sheet of parchment draped over tombstones.” Her faves flags tagging all my black-eyes. I’d like to know where Nice actu-
were the various smiling death heads with wings. As a dominatrix, ally is. The closest phone that she can say is her phone is the pay
in this basement [of her parents’ home!], she had set up her little phone on the corner of 10th and B.
dungeon like others arrange their kitchens. The Rum Seer was now long gone into the ground that
And suddenly she was kissing me. Or was I kissing her? To shakes and lets off steam. I realized then that NOTHING happens
make brief our encounter the kiss will suddenly lunge into the ori- forever, which leads to fear leads to disillusionment leads to the
fice of character as if to assume the responsibility of a verb related fridge and a last beer, a Palm “gul en mals” [generous and tender].
to conflagration. To the night’s last tender beer.

[The Rum Seer, née Tura Sultana: “I never was overly impressed
by him. The slide from respect to pity was quick. Although he
could be so terribly endearing whenever he was trying so hard to
entertain and impress. Furman Pivo is always going to be caught
~•~
In pursuit of Nice’s beckoning voice and in avoidance of Djuna, I
walk by the library branch on Second Avenue, then the Jefferson
continued. . .
Market branch, 23rd Street, Tompkins Square – of course they are
all dark and closed behind thick grates of secure mesh, because it’s
nearly midnight in our concrete insomnia. She is nowhere. I leave
notes, slip them under the doors of the various far-east squats and
tenements that smell of brick dust and rotting wood. I no longer
live with Djuna, haven’t seen her for weeks, have somehow lost
Elsa’s number and can never pinpoint the whereabouts of “my”
Nice.
I leave a note for her under the door of theTompkins
Square branch of the public library and continue along the terse
perimeter of the park. I suddenly witness a drug entrepreneur, in
full scurvy skin and grin behind loud gold, pulling a blade, get-
ting into an associate’s car. With a certain slo-mo style copped from
Scarface [somewhere between the élan of a fencer and the hair-trig-
ger viciousness of a petty mobster], and with the passenger door
open, he inserts the blade into the torso of the guy riding shotgun.
There is blood and the kids keep on shooting hoops.
It used to be people only opened letters in this kind of
casual fashion. But this entrepreneur had such grace that people
in cafés caught mid-sip, mid-allusion, were impressed by the ballet-
like beauty of it and forgot whether it was better to yank the blade
out or leave it in. The blade handle just quivered there because the
car, although top of the line, was revealing a somewhat rough idle.
A New York Post headline wafts by my feet: “Warm ‘E’ Train Hums
Hobo Lullaby.”
The Crack Cartel, with its hierarchical dreams, is a strange
and terrifying yet logical affirmation of Capitalism around here.
Its get-rich-quick schemes pushed three or four notches beyond
even those of the infomercial and the telemarketer’s repertoire.
Operates outside the mechanisms of reason and morality. Crack,
like military hardware, goes where it is paid for. Like the physics
of fluids with a combined density of blood and bile. Like the make-
over of luxury into necessity, crack creates its own heroic needs.
And the victimizers, suspended in their mumbling mythos of pain
and craving, forget that they too are victims of their own strategic
victimization. They have allowed the magnification of profit and
firearm calibers to skew all sense of prior proportion. Packing fire-
power means responsibility, an increased peer pressure to use the
gun. This pressure replaces wit, cunning, negotiation. And my dark
bowers become their fields of play.
The cops in this scruff of the ’hood are bred to resemble
these hoodlums. This is accomplished by having a gene withdrawn
that is essential for the manufacture of nitric oxide, the molecule
that allows nerve cells to communicate and is an essential brake
on excessive volatile behavior. The absence of this gene leaves the
enforcement agents wildly impulsive [“rogue cops”], sensitive not
to their surroundings nor their purported vocation but to the most
minute slights which might set them off, it makes them relentless-
ly aggressive, often to the point of killing targeted humans – the
Michael Stewart Phenomenon, or like Michael Carter, ad nauseum.
In effect, rogue cops are truer to themselves and to their service
than the more sedated/civilized among them. Rogue cops are the
crack entrepreneurs of their occupation, terrorists with a licensed
raison d’être.
And Rum Seer wonders how I feel about exacerbating this
state of things falling apart. Hmm. The cover of night is a savage
and delirious color of freedom in the state that does not yet exist.
Will they name this area after me? I don’t think about it too much,
Madame Rum Seer.
I remain adamant: Darkness remains a no-man’s-land where
adventure is reinvented, yea sure, it drags some suspicion, fear,
apprehension along with it. OK, granted, but these are our primary
colors. Night is feminine, the mother of the gods, the unconscious
swim in the womb. The Greeks believed the darkness of night
preceded the creation of all things. It is fertility, germination, the
anticipatory state, the promise of awesome eruptions.
Although they do not as yet know my face, the Cartel, Law
Enforcement, and the Yuppoisie’s brittle alliance do not like me. I
adversely affect one man’s livelihood, another’s dominion, and the
yup’s right to an unfettered lifestyle. I destroy turf, the very idea of
turf as ownership. I will make parents think twice before they toss
their kids to roam the streets past midnight. I will re-establish the
diurnal-nocturnal cycles that will allow us to go back to sleep with-
out fear we are losing out on some event or profitable opportunity.
I will reconstruct repose. Peace and happiness for every man, peace
and happiness through all the land, as the song goes. Someday my
retribution will seem as natural as Marinus van der Lubbe’s torch-
ing of the Reichstag in Berlin.
I’m talking about, for instance, 12th and A. Check it out.
It’s black-eyed to the max going on a month now. I sent a string
of eight streetlights on the ol’ black-eye one ferociously charged
night. Perhaps you saw it the night I took the Rum Seer there.
A darkness so conclusive and pervasive that the Cartel has since
packed up and conquered new turf. The cops, pretending to be un-
daunted, skirt its perimeters and huddle in the bright newsstands
squeezing free candy bars and sodas out of the proprietors. There
are almost no parked cars around here. Yes, this is urban renewal
my way.
The Cartel members tell a slender range of discount Shake-
speare stories that involve knifings, bro’s blown away, boxing, dead
lifts, AIDS, the next big thing, gold, Nike, all pacing about with
gila monster eyes and arms like baseball bats, arguing with any-
thing passing by.
The Yuppoisie, meanwhile, snuffed by the arrogance of
their accumulated comforts, continue to enlarge the gaping holes
in their jeans, hunting for the proper grimy nouveau edge, where
illicit adventure might resuscitate their over-furnished lives. And
when they park their shiny modes of transport they hope to find
streetlights so they can abandon their tin cans for evenings of
worry-free expense-account dissipation.
I’ve black-eyed this vigilance of light, and so they must go
east, further into the toxic repose of the cornered beast. I have
thus, in my own way, facilitated the redistribution of wealth. Be-
cause darkness initiates an entire process of reclamation. Bye bye
radio, radials, plates, plugs, window, seats, grimy guts, crankshaft,
doors. BMWs strewn like felled antelope on the Savannah, picked
clean by scavengers crouched in the carcasses with their grimy
knuckles. And within a week, a Mercedes will be wingless, legless,
eyeless, gutless. Adapt and thrive, leave or die!
There’s something haunting and beautiful about a carcass
of steel. Like an abandoned dream. Like the pig eye I found in the
gutter in front of my new walk-up chamber that once was an abat-
toir.
I now feel like part of the natural order of this asphalt
jungle. I am ally to the scavenger, one of them. I could demand
commissions from chop shops. I need an agent. But I must remain
satisfied with the highly codified nods and subtle eye signals they
tip my way. A secret agent does best when he keeps ego in check.
I go on breathing. My black-eyes reshuffle the inevitability of the
inevitable. I add exclamation points to despair and danger! Make
them seem like hope and love.
Yes, these haunted hulks of steel are my trophies, my sculp-
tures. I take curious admirers like Nice and Rita there. In winter
these steels skeletons hold the cold. In summer they retain the
day’s heat past midnight.
~•~
bart plantenga is also the author of Wiggling Wishbone and Sper-
matagonia: The Isle of Man. His book YODEL-AY-EE-OOOO: The
Secret History of Yodeling Around the World received worldwide
attention. He is working on a new novel, Paris Sex Tete and a new
book on yodeling Yodel in HiFi. His radio show Wreck This Mess
has been on the air on WFMU [NY], Radio Libertaire [Paris], Radio
100 and currently Radio Patapoe [Amsterdam] since 1986. He lives
in Amsterdam.
 DRAGON 66
(For Rain/for Richie)

Dragon double-six, you dominoed

Right out of this world
Catapulted up through sixth gear
All your senses

Straining, cut to ribbons,

Flayed wide-open throttle
Hell-bent for heaven,
In the wind.

Unkept promises, vows left

Unspoken, undeclared
Passion spent,

Used-up rusted shut or

Broke apart,
Where the metal meets the sky, unhealed
Wound, scarborn, lace

Stitched with needle blows,

Riveted to the

Tattooed map of your heart

Where

The hunter should be, orion your third eye

His star-sword tip.

At the crooked crossroads

Lines converge

Rise or fall according to their laws

The hawk drifts upward, riding one
Current, while blood rains

Down, tracking along a riverbed.

I never met you, saw your image

In skin,

On the luminous page,

That turns by itself, a leaf, a life
At a time . . . .
. . . . and once, passing by, in your
black hat,

taking out the trash

Photographs by Ericka Wildgirl Dana while the raven croaked and the stars wheeled,
spun the planets round the sun the moon

overhead

GOT GRASS? h
in a dream
in a dance

h like satellites
to one long lonesome note,
a keening song sung a little too hard, too high

& too late, for comfort.

Ride the wind, let all the bells

Ring,
Chime the blood-red raven’s caw
Call

Calling you home.

She’s calling you from home.

Mali Delaney

Mali Delaney is a heretofore virtually unpublished writer who has spent her entire adult life

h www.catnipfarm.com h
Your source for excellent organic catnip, kitty greens/pet grass
YYY and other good stuff for pets and people! YYY
as a working stiff. Dreaming along the byroads and making poems of daily occurences, the
dark light of observance in the regular headlamp gloom.
She has consistently refused to deal with publishers, agents, book tours and other forms of
sado-masochism that comprise the writer’s path to paid perdition. She hopes that in the pre-
apocalyptic neverland there will be space for true mavericks and renegades like her heroes
& herself. “Mickey Spillane is a hero because he always mentioned how much Hammer
tipped his waitresses.” She is currently working on an interlocking series of novels, known
as “the novelization-in-progress”.
 Reviews
Books
Non-Fiction
Made By Hand: Searching for
Meaning in a Throwaway World
Mark Frauenfelder
(Portfolio, 2010)
Mark Frauenfelder knows about technology. He
is former editor at “Wired”, a co-founder of the
amazingly great blog “Boing Boing” and editor
of “Make” magazine. He has bulletproof cred
when it comes to writing about what is hip and
groovy with the average iPad owner. So why is
he writing about raising chickens?
Made By Hand: Searching for Meaning in
a Throwaway World is a wonderfully deceptive
little book. Frauenfelder chronicles his family’s
transition from tech-boom suburbanites to bare-
foot coconut harvesters, their continued evolu-
tion, and his personal search for equilibrium in
a disposable society. It weaves together enter-
taining tales of failed projects and small, daily
successes. A bit like a modern suburban Swiss
Family Robinson, Made by Hand is such an
easy and entertaining read that it nearly masks
the serious social message that underlies the
story.
Although the author writes at length about
gardening, beekeeping, raising chickens and
other elements of “Urban Homesteading”, this
is not a how-to guide. As Frauenfelder recounts
his own slightly naive forays into “DIY” (Do-
It-Yourself) culture, he reveals himself as a sort
of wired Bodhisattva. In the chapter entitled
“Learning How to Learn”, he writes; “...It’s as
though the folks who have been spending their
time creating the Web and everything on it sud-
denly looked up from their monitors and real-
ized that the world itself is the ultimate hack-
able platform. In other words, for these creative
DIY folks, the Internet stopped being an end in
itself and became a tool to get things done in
the real world.”
As the “Foodie” movement toward locally
raised food has raised the awareness of what we
eat, the “Maker” movement holds the potential
to do the same for so-called “Consumer” goods.
Instead of shopping for the latest avatar of per-
sonal satisfaction, why not use what is at hand
and build it yourself, sew it, repair it, modify or
decorate it? What Michael Pollan has done for
food, Mark Frauenfelder is doing for “stuff”.
Fiction
The Big Bang
Mickey Spillane and
Max Allan Collins
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010)
Make no mistake; Mickey Spillane’s work is
pulp. It was pulp when I, Jury came out in 1948,
and it’s pulp now. It has never received the be-
lated critical acclaim of Hammett, Chandler, or
even his contemporary, Jim Thompson. What
Spillane did achieve was selling a shit-load of
books (over 200 million world-wide), relying
on an oh-so American combination of graphic
vigilante violence and lurid sex.
When Spillane came home from WWII and
invented his signature character, Mike Ham-
mer, he was giving birth to a representation of
the post-war American male id. Hammer ap-
pealed to the blue collar G.I.s, who entered the
monotony of suburban life after the chaos and
anarchy of war. Unlike the moral ambiguity and
elegant toughness of Sam Spade or Philip Mar-
lowe, Hammer was a dogface, just like them,
and though they could no longer solve their
problems with a Colt .45, Hammer could. Mike
Hammer was the prototype for James Bond,
Dirty Harry, and every other wisecracking
tough-guy since, and the cultural significance
of Spillane cannot be over-stated.
During his later years, Spillane took a shine
to a young journeyman writer named Max Allan
Collins, best know for the “Road To Perdition”
graphic novels. Collins, no stranger to the pulp Case’s medical bills, and as soon as possible he
genre, has paid his rent writing novelizations went back to work, hammering out an amazing
of popular films and did an extended stint as a new album with X drummer DJ Bonebrake and
writer for the “Dick Tracy” comic strip. His de- Ron Franklin of Gasoline Silver.
votion to popular fiction and his scholarly dedi- Wig! is a raw slab of bluesy, swampy, roots-
cation to the pulp genre made him the perfect rock, recorded in just 3 days. Packed with blues
writer for Spillane to tap to take charge of his harp and distorted tremolo and slide guitar, it
unfinished works.
In The Big Bang, Collins shows his ability
comes off as a scorching live recording laid
down by a man on a mission. Like a steel gui-
to take on the voice of the master, serving up tar player in a storefront gospel church, Case is
247 pages of terse, bloody, libidinous and com- making music like he means it.
pletely politically incorrect first-person tough- It’s definitely a change- at times sounding
guy story telling. Set in the 60’s, Hammer takes more like Dr. John or Junior Kimbrough than the
on the hairy hippies and drug-addled crazies of polished California pop master or the thought-
swinging Greenwich Village, blowing open the ful singer songwriter of the past, Peter Case still
biggest heroin ring in the cities history. manages to sound authentic and natural singing
Unlike Robert B. Parker’s attempt to com- the blues- and damn it, he’s earned the right.
plete Chandler’s unfinished Poodle Springs, YepRoc is offering Wig! on CD and vinyl, and
The Big Bang works precisely because of Col- all of the songs on the record can be previewed
lins skill to work unrepentantly in the brutal
style of Spillane. Where Parker’s voice was
at the YepRoc website.
unmistakable and Poodle Springs read more
like a throwback Spenser novel, Collins rarely
lets on that this book was completed in the 21st
Free Web Book
century. He occasionally slips in some detail to Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden
provide historical context, which Spillane never Gilbert Livingstone Wilson, Ph.D.
would have bothered with. Otherwise, this is a (University of Minnesota, 1917)
seamless, classic Hammer book.
Vinyl
Wig!
Peter Case
(YepRoc, 2010)
This classic text on what is now known, as “sus-
tainable living” has been a standard of back-to-
the-landers for years. Originally published in
1917, it is a recounting of what the author, Gil-
bert Wilson, learned about indigenous agricul-
ture from the Hidatsa women of Minnesota.
Perhaps the most comprehensive description of
how to plant and manage a traditional “Three
Sisters” garden (corn, beans and squash), ever
The music of Peter Case was the soundtrack
written. Buffalo bird Woman’s Garden is a blue-
for the coming-of-age of a lot of post-punk, pre-
print for how to most efficiently raise enough
GenXers. With The Nerves, he recorded “Hang-
food to survive and thrive without canning or
ing on the Telephone”, probably the single great-
refrigeration.
est “new wave” song ever, which later became
In this traditional system, corn plants are
a hit for Blondie. His next band, The Plimsouls,
grouped in mounds and the beans are allowed
appeared in the brat pack classic “Valley Girl”
to climb the cornstalks, binding them together,
and their single “Million Miles Away” became
while “fixing” the nitrogen in the soil that the
an instant 80’s standard. In the years that fol-
corn needs to grow. The squash plants spread
lowed, Case released a string of strong solo re-
out across the ground, smothering weeds. As
cords, while gaining notoriety as a musicologist
well as being complimentary to each other bo-
and historian of popular music.
tanically, corn beans and squash, along with the
The original fans of The Nerves and The
“fourth sister” of sunflowers (grown surround-
Plimsouls are no longer spikey-haired kids,
ing the garden) provide the protein, complex
and neither is Case. In 2009, he suffered health
carbohydrates and calories needed for complete
problems and underwent heart surgery and, like
nutrition.
so many aging residents of post-punk, post-
Along with complete directions on how to
prosperity Amerika, Case was left with a six-
lay out plots plant gardens, there are sections on
figure hospital bill.
seed saving, food storage and tool making.
Friends like T-Bone Burnett, Dave Alvin,
This amazing book is available in its entirety
Stan Ridgway, Syd Straw Van Dyke Parks,
online at: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/wom-
Loudon Wainwright III and Richard Thomp-
en/buffalo/garden/garden.html
son appeared at a benefit to raise funds to cover
www.feral-tech.com
Iowa’s Rural Hackspace & Skunkworks
“Bringing Third World Technology to the First World”
 Dumpster-Diver Gardening
Dumpster-Diver Gardening
by Rich Dana
We began dumpster-diver gardening sometime in the early 90’s, when we came
across a vendor at the Brooklyn Terminal Market tossing flats of broken and
wilted bedding plants into the trash. Neither Wildgirl nor I were strangers to
dumpster diving (a proud trash-picking tradition that is now fashionably know
as “Freeganism”), and W.G. immediately hatched a plan for me to distract the
shop owner by buying a bag of peat moss while she filled the trunk of her ‘74
Valiant with rescued greenery. “We didn’t need the plants, ” she recalls- “but
they didn’t have to die. They were hurt but still alive. All they needed was some
TLC and a home.”
Fast-forward 10 years. We no longer live in New York. We have a small or-
ganic farm, and grow a lot of our own stuff. On a blistering July afternoon in
Coralville, Iowa, I noticed one of the seasonal garden centers set up in a grocery
store parking lot was breaking down for the season and again, they were dump-
ster-izing flat after flat of sad, leggy, brown and bolting tomato plants, squash,
peppers, herbs, and flowers. A lot of the higher-priced organic and heirloom
stuff was left behind. I took as much as the old Subaru GL would hold. What
I have discovered in the last few years is that throughout the Midwest (indeed,
much of the country), huge numbers of plants get dumped, given away or sold
for next to nothing sometime in the last part of June to first week of July. If
timed properly, a pickup truck can be filled with blueberry bushes, roses, prairie
plants, perennials, and lots and lots of vegetable plants for less than twenty
bucks- often for nothing more than the price of gas. If you are a non-driver
and really hard-core, you can do it with a cargo bike, shopping cart, hand truck,
wheelbarrow or travois. The keys to success are timing, speed, and a modicum
of stealth. Despite
the fact that the
stuff is being jet-
tisoned, employ-
ees, particularly
middle managers,
can tend to flex-
out on people
who want their
trash. In most
cases, though, if
you time your
arrival properly,
the peons who
got exiled to
the sweltering
parking lot to
haul the stuff to
the dumpster are
more than happy to have you lighten their load.
A lot of people like to get their gardens in early and planting in July just
seems contrary to the American puritan work-ethic. What kind of deadbeat
plants a garden in July? This is one of those great situations where being lazy
pays off. Your neighbor the foodie-nazi paid 25 bucks for a few Green Zebra
tomato plants... you are hauling in a dozen of them for free. If you feel that you
absolutely must plant something in early spring, you can start the season by
tossing some brassica or greens seeds around. This will make you feel like you
are doing something, and you will get some fresh greens to eat after the long
winter. By July, your crop of mustard greens, radishes, lettuce or spinach has
bolted, you have collected the seed for next year and turned the rest under, and
you are ready for the flood of refugee plants.
In my experience, these stressed-out dumpster plants are often already flower-
ing or even bearing fruit. They have been stuck in those pots for a long time,
they have become root-bound and they think they are going to die, so they try
to make seeds. Once their roots are unbound, they are ready to party! Placed
in some decent soil with a little compost tea and lots of water, they come on
remarkably fast, and generally produce vegetables only a few weeks behind
schedule.
You don’t need a huge space to grow your own food, and in the twilight of
our empire,
there are plenty
of empty lots
and abandoned
properties that
can benefit from
some guerilla
“foodscaping”. If
you are manag-
ing to hang on
to your suburban
dream-home, I’ll
bet you are ready
to give up some
lawn mowing
and score some
fresh produce
from right out-
side your back
door. After all,
they don’t call Whole Foods “Whole Paycheck” for nothing.
For those working in a very small plot, I suggest that you find a copy of John
Jeavons’ classic book “How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought
Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine.” This book is the bible of “com-
panion planting” or “bio-intensive techniques” and explains what kinds of plants
can share space, allowing you to double or triple your food production per
square foot.
Some issues have come up over the years of dumpster-diver gardening. Gar-
den center plants are often hybrid varieties, non-organically raised in industrial
facilities and after being stressed in poor growing conditions, they can carry
pests, fungi or plant diseases. You do need to know what to look for and what to
pass up. Also, seeds from hybrid varieties, if saved, may not produce the same
plants next year. In some cases this can be fun- we have the weirdest assortment
of winter squash growing from years genetic roulette and cross-pollination.
The bottom line is, dumpster-diver gardening is a great way to get into
growing your own food. The risks are modest and the benefit is huge. Make the
rounds and scope out the possibilities. Summer is still young- get out there and
start diving!

In Memory of Robert Dana

This premiere issue of OBSOLETE is dedicated to Robert Dana. RP was a writer,
BLOOD HARVEST
teacher, and publisher of immense skill. In over 55 years dedicated to the perfec-
tion of his craft, his work touched countless readers and listeners, his mentorship Say “Goodbye.” Say whatever
molded the careers of scores of writers. you want. Summer here begins
He was also a great father who encouraged every creative endeavor, like thirty years of trying
every hare-brained adventure and every half-baked scheme I ever undertook. He
believed in putting it out there, every day- enjoying the successes, learning from
to breathe under water.
the failures, laughing, cursing, crying- getting up tomorrow and doing it again. Blue
corn surging the plumped lap
and sow-belly hills. Sweat.
Nights rinsed in hot moonlight.

The farmer who looks at you

and crumbs dirt from under
a thumbnail black as cake.

You don’t leave it. You

give two fingers to a whirling
gear, your children to the
church. Slash lips and tongue
and arms until blood rains
on the harvest, tasselled and
feathered and green as
the dumb god of grass.

Robert Dana
1929 -2010
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