=@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@= =@@@@@ C O S M I C D E B R I S @@@@@= =@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@= Issue Number 1: June 1995 COSMIC DEBRIS EZINE'S RESIDENT STAFFERS DJ Johnson.....................Editor/Publisher Jim Andrews....................Ass Editor Louise Johnson.................Politics Cai Campbell...................Layout & Music Coleslaw.......................Resident Bohemian Artist Scott Wedel....................Writer of fine Misc Stuff ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS * EDITORS NOTES - DJ explains it all. * INTERVIEW WITH THE REPROBATES - Alan Wright interviews a great band. * THEY'RE KILLING JIMMY MONTGOMERY - The story of a medicinal marijuana user's prison nightmare. DJ Johnson reports. * AN EVENING OF THE MUSIC OF FRANK ZAPPA - Cai Campbell's review of Seattle Symphony Orchestra's performance with some of Frank's friends. * THEY DID THE MONSTER MOSH - DJ Johnson relates what it's like to become a human pinball when all you want to do is see a bleedin' concert! * REVIEWS - Several records reviewed by Alan Wright * URBANIA - James Andrews' column in which he explains the GOP mentality, baits the censors, and single handedly ends the OJ debate. * ROSES ARE FUCKED - A pair of poems from opposite sides of the galaxy, just to prove that we're all cultural and shit. * IN CLOSING - Stuff we didn't say before but figured we oughta. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- EDITOR'S NOTES Hello, and welcome to the first issue of COSMIC DEBRIS. My name is DJ Johnson, and my qualifications for running an E-zine are as follows. I love music, I care about politics and I have a computer. Serious inquiries from mega-buck magazines who wish to employ me should be faxed. I haven't got a fax machine, but then that's probably a moot point, doncha think? English is our second language here at the plush Cosmic Debris Office Compound. We don't have a first language as of yet, but we're open to suggestions. This means, basically, that grammar and spelling sit just below "finishing our vegetables" on our priority list. Don't let it bug ya. Cosmic Debris was designed as an outlet for writing about music, first and foremost, but there's another purpose as well. Political awareness. There is a lot of strange stuff happening out there, and a lot of people are blowing trumpets and claiming that the people have finally spoken. Not so. A huge percentage of people eligible to vote do not exercise that right. There are a ton of polls that have concluded that if these people had voted in the last election, the GOP landslide wouldn't have happened. Newt might still be on the outside, writing his own Mein Kampf and throwing rocks at orphans. Through these pages, we hope to get some of those non-voters pissed off enough to vote. We start, this issue, by telling the story of Jimmy Montgomery, a medicinal marijuana user, who has been incarcerated and tortured through medical neglect, to the point where his life is in danger. Several people were willing to talk on Jimmy's behalf, but I wasn't able to find anyone to offer an opposing viewpoint. The man who testified against him is in prison himself now, and the Governors office kept routing my calls to an answering machine. So the story is written to the best of my ability with the information I had available to me. The political content of Issue Number Two will be a major focal point, as we will be taking on the topic of censorship. Our WWW site has links to politically important sites, as well. Our zine is named after a song by the late great Frank Zappa. Mr. Z was a very big influence on several of our staff members, myself included. In this issue, Cai Campbell reviews Seattle Symphony Orchestra's performance of several of Zappa's works. Alan Wright brings us a stack of record reviews and a great interview of The Reprobates. Assistant Editor James Andrews (Who for his very own sinister reasons prefers "Ass Editor" to "Asst. Editor") is also a dangerous psychotic columnist, and his "Urbania" is your ticket to the underside of all that you THINK is normal. J.C. Hendee and a character known as cybr/\w/\spydr have submitted poems for our first issue. We have an angry little piece about moshing that'll piss some people off, and have other people waving banners and writing us letters of support. Louise Johnson and Scott Wedel will be checking in with articles in the next issue. So what have we got here...let's see...record reviews, punk interviews, political stuff, poetry...Yup, I'm pretty sure this isn't revolutionary among zines on the internet. "No focus/Cool stuff" isn't new either. What we do have is an interesting mix of people with an interesting mix of ideas. And we have computers! DJ Johnson Editor ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Interview with THE REPROBATES by Alan Wright contact: head13@aol.com The Reprobates are from Timonium (close to Baltimore), Maryland. They play tight, hard-edged, but very melodious Punk Rock. When their record label, You Say When, sent me a copy of the Reprobates' 4-song 7" EP, the accompanying note went something like "We wanted to wait until we had something really obnoxious to send you, so we waited 'til the Reprobates EP was out." They couldn't have been more correct, for The Reprobates make for some great obnoxious --but extremely catchy-- music. Cosmic Debris, upon hearing of my enthusiasm for these young punks, dealt me the task of interviewing them, and so it was on one rainy Seattle Sunday afternoon that this interview transpired, via the wonderful and always dependable long distance phone call. All four Reprobates members were present, and I, Alan Wright, asked the questions. * * * * * Cosmic Debris: So, who do we have here? Frank Ererra: I play bass. Mike Draper: Singing, lead guitar and philosopher. Billy Ropel: My name's Billy, and I guess I play the drums. Jason Wicksell: I'm Jason and I play guitar. CD: Well, I was going to start with the boring questions, like when you guys first started and all that. Frank: Me and Mike have known each other since we were kids, and we used to jam and stuff, and then we met Jason and our first drummer who went to jail. Mike: Our original drummer was a big crack addict, and he stared stealing our equipment and then finally went to jail. Billy: I put an ad in the paper, and they called me, so I went to see them play when they had a replacement drummer, in like, 1992. That would make this line-up how old? Mike: Two Years. Jason: I saw Mike and Frank in a band four years ago called Tragic Drag. Mike: That started in '89. Jason: That was sort of New York Dolls shit, and I was totally impressed. I was like 16 at the time, and I kept pestering them to let me play guitar. The original guitarist was from Louisiana, and they ended up kicking him out. CD: Why did you call the band The Reprobates? Jason: My old man used to call us a bunch of Reprobates. Mike: It's got a sound to it, that's kind of like from the 50's. It's not a real modern word. CD: So what is it about The Reprobates that makes you so unique? Mike: I think it's because, at a glance, any given song might have an obvious flavor of one time, but throughout the set I don't think we can be pinned down anywhere. Frank: We don't concentrate on a what a record or a show will sound like, we concentrate on what a song will sound like. We've written lots of great songs, but we don't play 'em if they don't stand on their own compared to the other songs. When all of our songs are so diverse, it's hard to, um, I mean, we have no problem writing songs. Jason: We just do what we think sounds good. CD: I guess I noticed from the EP, which is only four songs, that they're four different sounding songs. [everything becomes unintelligible here as all Reprobates begin talking at once.] Frank: Our idea was to put out some of our heaviest stuff on that. I mean, there's a whole slew of songs that are a lot more far out than those, but still pretty raw. Billy: They've all got the punk attitude. Mike: We're a big "back ups" band, we do all the "shooby-doo-wops" and stuff. Chicks dig that stuff. Frank: When it's slightly out of tune and done with a bit of feedback, it takes on a whole different sound. CD: Sure. Now, I think Jason mentioned to me when I talked to him before that you draw a pretty female crowd, as opposed to other D.C. area bands. Mike: Well, at least they look female! Billy: We have a lot of them that don't just stand around, either. Mike: They're doing weird dances and shit, too. Billy: But [they are] the best looking chicks in town, I mean, we were a Rock 'n' Roll band before we were more of a punk rock band, and a lot of the clubs we were playing were more male oriented types of places, and we bring the chicks with us, wearing the go-go boots and miniskirts. They love the band. Mike: The thing is, that little scene, that's somehow unheard of in D.C. Jason: It's not like we're sticking two girls on stage and dancing, these are girls that just show up at every gig, and [there are a] lot. The band likes it, punks like it, parents like it. CD: I find it hard to believe that parents like that! Mike: My mom likes us! CD: There must be some pretty hip parents around there! I was going to ask you about one of the songs on the EP called "Drugs." I take it you guys are pro-legalization, at least of pot? [outburst of laughter] Mike: We've only been doing it for a couple of years, so I wouldn't quite call us pros yet, but we're working on it. [more laughter] Jason: It's like a political thing. It's something we wrote in high school a couple of years ago, but I guess it gets the point across. Mike: We're anything but a political band, that song is not even saying "Drugs are cool, everyone should do drugs." It's just that everyone should have that option. It's not a peer pressure song or anything like that. Jason: It's the decriminalizing aspect of it. Billy: It kind of comes down to First Amendment rights. Mike: I definitely think there's a group of people that sit around and do drugs and do nothing with their lives, but I also believe that there's a big population of people who use drugs and are very creative. Take the Village Voice, this writer broke a big article on pot and how he liked to go home and smoke a big joint after work. Andy Warhol, he totally believed people could be creative on drugs. Frank: Not that we're experts or anything. Mike: I'm so high strung anyway, that pot brings me down to a level where I can deal with people. Otherwise, I'm one big pot of coffee. It helps me formulate my thoughts. Frank: What I think is, um... oh, nevermind, I forgot what I was going to say! Billy: Must be from smoking too much pot! [more laughter] CD: I don't know what it's like out there, but here we're seeing a lot more pot busts. Mike: Yeah, I just got some mushrooms mailed from my brother in Olympia. CD: That's the home of the good stuff. There was a doctor, a woman around here, who was growing pot to help her patients with glaucoma, and they busted her! Mike: They're just trying to make a point or something. Frank: We do another song called "Jimmy Comes," which was written about the old drummer, Jimmy, when he was still in the band --Mike has a knack for writing about everyone around him-- the song starts off, "Driving in the pouring rain, looking for some rock cocaine, Jimmy's screwing up and going down again tonight." Jason: One day at practice, he says, "Hey, is this song about me?" Mike: We don't try to sing about drugs, like everyone should be fucked up, we have two songs about drugs, but this band is not on a big cause about drugs. We have other topics on our minds. CD: You mentioned that your not a political band. What do you guys write about mostly? Mike: Chicks! Frank: Just about our lives, what we see happening. Mike: There's this song we used to do called "Walk Away," again about our other drummer, he was a notorious woman beater, and he just made this way too public. I was friends with a girl he was beating, and I just saw it as way too fucked up, that kind of shit. I thought the song might kinda inspire her to get out. But, stuff like that, what I see around me. There's one song called "Life Ain't Easy," which is about what it's like when your girlfriend is fucking around on you behind your back. We have a song called "Black Sheep," about being different, about being what you want to be, whatever. Frank: But that's like another song that could be interpreted many different ways. CD: Do you guys get accused of being "sexist" with your lyrics? Jason: We just did a "Rock for Choice," which is sponsored by the Feminist Majority Group, which is putting ourselves on the line, 'cause if anyone is going to call us that kind of shit, they are. Mike: But it didn't happen. You gotta keep in mind, that we do it all with a lot of humor. Most people, if they're of any kind of intelligence, they see the humor in us and get our songs. There have been a few that didn't, though. Frank: Bad publicity does wonders though, from everyone like the Sex Pistols to 2 Live Crew. CD: A little bit of controversy isn't going to hurt you too much. Mike: This isn't staged stuff, either. Everyone in this band has different ideas about politics and all that, we're just honest in what we talk about. We don't necessarily watch what we say, or refrain from saying what's on our minds, because, well, lots of people get to say what they think! Not enough people say what's on their minds! And if they want to say stuff that's not honest, then they're the ones with the problem. Billy: We had this flier that had a belly dancer on it, and someone said, "Is that you view women?" and I said, "Sure, women like that, I do!" We always have women on our fliers. We like girls, man. CD: What are you guys doing while we do this interview? I hear glasses tinkling and stuff. Mike: Oh, drinking some beers, you know. We got some pot rolling here, we got a banjo. [brief interlude of banjo music] CD: What are the Reprobates biggest influences? Mike: I would say the Rolling Stones and the New York Dolls would have to be my two biggest ones. Billy: Definitely the Dead Boys, they changed my life a long time ago. I like a lot of stuff. I love the Dwarves and The Supersuckers. Mike: The last record I bought was Louis Jordan (sings "Caladonia".) I'm personally influenced a lot by the Glam scene. The original Glam scene, not the shit that happened in California in the '80s, [but] stuff like T. Rex and stuff. I mean, the stuff that came later was just bad metal with a bunch of pretty faces. Jason: I was into a lot of cornball Doowop and shit, I'm really into songs with hooks. Mike: You see a lot of bands with the right influences, the right looks, the right equipment, but they can't write the songs. Jason: We're a band that writes songs. That's where Rock 'n' Roll came from. I mean, a lot of punks, like the Sex Pistols were against the Rod Stewarts and the Rolling Stones, but they wrote some great music, whether or not they were on the same political kick or whatever. CD: I think punk bands of that time, they were a backlash against bands like the Stones and the Who, which had become complacent. I mean, those bands weren't "notorious" anymore. Jason: Yeah, I definitely agree with that, but then I can't go back to many Stones albums and say they weren't great. Mike: Look at that song "Where The Boys All Go," that's off of "Emotional Rescue" from like 1980, and that's punk as shit. I mean, I see all that, but I like it all. Jason That's coming from a guy with tattoos all over his body. Mike: I got goats tattooed on me, and I like Rod Stewart! The Reprobates: 5 Northhampton Road Timonium, MD 21093 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- THEY'RE KILLING JIMMY MONTGOMERY A horror story that happens to be true. By DJ Johnson. Somebody is making an example of Jimmy Montgomery. Some soldier or soldiers in the wild and confusing battle called "the war on drugs" has painted a target on him, stood him up against a wall of propaganda, and, fortunately, misfired. The war on drugs was supposed to rid the streets of the gangs, rid the world of the cartels, make this country safe again, assuming it ever really was. The crack cocaine street wars. The moral decay. That was supposed to be what it was all about. But those people shoot back. They have bigger guns than the feds carry. They're not against using them. Hey, I know. Let's kick down the doors of private citizens who are smoking marijuana in their homes where they are hurting no one. Let's take them away, put their names in the papers and claim them as trophies in the war on drugs. Let's take away their homes and their cars and their children and their life savings. The spoils of war. And let's not be picky. Let's go after the people who smoke marijuana to relieve their pain. These people don't scare us. These people don't shoot back. They aren't the criminal type. And then let's all get together at the local watering hole and celebrate the victory with a few pitchers of brew. We'll be off duty. Nobody will care. We'll get numb for fun. Just for fun. Hey, it's legal. Serious Pain Jimmy Montgomery was an 18 year old highway worker when the scaffolding he was working on collapsed on an overpass, sending him crashing to the freeway below. The accident made him a paraplegic. During lawsuit negot- iations, he was given a choice of fully paid medical for life, or a cash settlement. His doctors could see his future. He opted for the medical. 23 years and 31 major surgeries later, the wisdom of that choice is obvious. Somewhere along the way, Jimmy got another little present from life. He developed a condition known to medical people as Chronic Decubitis Ulcers with Psuedomonous Staphylococcus Drainage, a terrible disease that actually eats flesh and bone. He has a 10 inch hole in his thigh and a 3 inch hole in one buttock, and the two are connected. Infections are a constant worry. Pain is a constant fact. Sometimes the prescribed medications just don't do it. Jimmy opted to smoke marijuana. Many people do, for that very reason. For many, it's simply the only thing that makes the pain bearable. On December 1st, 1990, police officers with a warrant entered the home that Jimmy shared with his mother, Thelma Montgomery-Farris. They found slightly less than 2 ounces of marijuana. They also found and confiscated a pair of guns. In court, Jimmy would be portrayed as a bad ass drug dealer who was armed and dangerous, who intended to distribute the weed. The fact that the guns had belonged to Jimmy's father, and that they'd been in the house since his death in 1983 made little difference to the DA. Only one witness testified against him, a sheriff by the name of Lawless. Since that trial, Lawless himself has been convicted of three counts of embezzlement of drug seized property, and embezzlement of drug seized money. Jimmy Montgomery, medicinal marijuana user, was sentenced to life plus 16 years, even though he had no prior record. His mother put up her house and 10,000 dollars of her own life savings to keep him out of jail during the trial, but eventually, there was nothing more she could do. For a while there, it looked like the house was going to be taken from her anyway. She was charged with providing her home for illegal activities. She won that battle, but it cost her most of the rest of her savings. There are some obvious problems with the concept of incarcerating a person with Jimmy Montgomery's ailments. Medical treatment of an ongoing nature is not what prison hospital wards are set up for. The medics there are used to broken bones. Wounds from home-made knives. Flu. Every day injuries from every day life in the yard. Here comes Jimmy, with a huge hole in his leg where the disease has eaten its way through. He needs three to four whirlpool baths every day. He absolutely needs a shower after each one to wash away any bacteria from the hydro-tub. Ideally, he needs to be the only one using the tub. It's the bacteria thing. It's not just a precaution. Bacteria that would be harmless to you and me can kill him. He needs to have intravenous antibiotics, because that's the only form strong enough to fight his infections. Pills just don't do the job. Jimmy was due for a round of IV Antibiotics at the time that they took him off to prison. He certainly didn't get what he needed in the ward. Therefore, he was already on low battery before the neglect began. So the prison hospital welcomed its new patient/inmate to a ward where 40 men use 1 hydro-tub. And if you guessed that there would be no shower, you were absolutely right. Jimmy's condition began to deteriorate almost immediately. Jimmy's status changes from day to day, or at least the reported status does. There have been a few near misses where his supporters thought his release was imminent. He's been moved around within the prison a few times. Once, he was moved from the hospital ward to a regular cell. By law, he should have been provided with a cell designed for wheelchair access. There should have been bars that he could hoist himself into his bed with. There should have been a special toilet seat. And there is no reason on God's green Earth why a man in his condition, feeling the pain that he's feeling, should have been subjected to a body cavity search. We can only hope that his wounds were not searched, but there is nothing in the track record of the prison officials in this case to suggest that they wouldn't do just that. People Find Out Jimmy doesn't fight this battle alone. NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) stepped in almost as soon as it began. At one point, even ABC got into the act, doing a segment on Jimmy's situation for a special report on "the drug war" called "A New Strategy." Many concerned citizens phoned the office of the Governor Of Oklahoma, Frank Keating, asking for Jimmy's release to a qualified hospital. The publicity was getting pretty heavy. Eventually, an announcement was made that Jimmy would indeed be released to a hospital as soon as possible. Feeling certain that justice had prevailed and a terrible wrong had finally been righted, everyone let their guard down. But somewhere in that prison, Jimmy Montgomery was still in pain, still in the wrong place, and still in the same clothing he'd come into the joint with. And he was staying. The release wasn't coming. Not yet, anyway, because the DA who had procecuted him blocked the release. Richard Dugger, it seems, has a thing about his convictions sticking. I think a lot of DAs do, but I like to kid myself into believing that most DAs understand that this is not and will never be a black and white world. There is such a thing as gray area, and simply pretending that this is not so does nothing toward changing the fact. Mr. Dugger obtained a conviction based on the false reality of Jimmy as drug dealer, a fact, he said, that was supported solely by the enormous amount of marijuana found in the defendants possession. Slightly less than two ounces. Of course, that could be made to sound like a huge amount to a jury. All you have to do is conduct the Voir Dire (jury selection) screening process to eliminate anyone who wouldn't send a person to prison for easing their pain with marijuana. A jury of his peers, they said. Shall we test them all for blood alcohol level on any given night? These people could be made to believe that a seed meant he intended to start a pot farm. Where was Jimmy's attorney during all this? I don't know for sure, but I do know it was a public defender. His second lawyer, a Mr. Raybon Martin, jumped into the case feet first, smiling and waving and seeming quite confident. His enthusiasm may have waned later on, however. It's been said that he missed as many as three seperate appeal hearings and is no longer returning phone calls. Nobody likes to lose. Victims This is a crime. The whole thing, from beginning to end, has been one long running crime. It's been a crime against decency. Against justice. Against the principles our nation was founded upon. You're a victim, because tomorrow, you may develop cancer, or AIDS, or any number of terrible diseases, and next week, you could be hit with the first wave of pain that is way beyond anything you ever imagined. And you may discover that the only thing that eases that pain for any length of time is marijuana. And some bunch of assholes who are feeling no pain of their own may just kick in your door and handcuff you and put you away. Jimmy Montgomery's mother is certainly a victim here. Her life has been turned upside down. Worst of all, she has to suffer every day, knowing her son is being tortured for no good reason by the very government she and others of her generation were raised to trust and believe in. Finally, there is Jimmy Montgomery himself. He's been the silent party in this case. He's in a place where talking can get you beaten or killed. He's at the mercy of too many people who don't seem to understand the concept of mercy. If not for the super-ego of a particular politician in the DA's office, Jimmy might be in a hospital, beginning another long fight to regain some semblence of health. It took 137 days for his doctors to repair the damage of his first eight months served. (He was released on bond for a year and a half, then returned to prison). 137 days in a hospital bed. How long will it take this time? Until his doctor can get a good look at him, nobody knows. And what if he dies from this experience? It's not at all far fetched, because Jimmy has been weakened so badly. What then? There will be no murder trial, that much we know. No justice. One fact must be considered, and that is that if this same situation was taking place in Africa, or South America, and the victim was an American, our government would be doing everything it could to free that person. The same mistreatments would be discussed day in and day out by an outraged press. There might even be threats of sanctions. But this is America, and if it were not for the efforts of NORML, you wouldn't even know it was happening. The attitude of the Washington DC bunch may have been reflected best by former Deputy Drug Czar John P. Walters, who was quoted in the May 1st issue of William F. Buckley Jr's NATIONAL REVIEW. Mr. Walters was highly critical of the ABC news special on the case, saying "Apparently, ABC couldn't find a grandmother on death row for carrying a roach clip..." Meanwhile As I write this, Jimmy has been moved from his cell back to the prison infirmary, where they have finally put him back on IV antibiotics. The oral antibiotics weren't strong enough, just as his doctor had said, and he was deteriorating fast. The DOC's pardon and parole board is set to meet sometime in the last week of May to discuss the situation. Does all this sound like progress? I wonder what Jimmy thinks. He's heard it all before. ----- * ----- The author would like to thank the following people for providing so much assistance in the writing of this article... Allen St. Pierre (Deputy National Director of NORML) Norma Sapp and Michael Pearson (from the office of OK NORML) And a special thanks to Thelma Montgomery-Farris, who helped a great deal with this story, and who answered a lot of unpleasant questions that I'm sure were not much fun for her to answer. She's a class act. The author attempted to get opposing viewpoints from various people involved in this story, but was unable to do so. The information used in the writing of this story was gathered from the above mentioned people. Here are some phone numbers of people who need to hear from you. Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating.........405-521-2342 Fax...405-522-3492 NORML (Nat'l office)....................202-483-5500 Fax...202-483-0057 Email NORML@aol.com Oklahoma NORML office...................405-840-HEMP --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Concert Review: An Evening of The Music of Frank Zappa Conducted by Joel Thome Seattle Symphony * Band from Utopia * The Persuasions By Cai Campbell I still can't believe that Frank has left this planet. Not a day goes by where I don't feel his presence. His influence on my life has been subtle and pervasive. He has the dubious honor of being the most frequent character in my often colorful dreams. I miss that man very much. I have a few regrets in this life, and one that nears the top of my list is not ever having seen Frank Zappa perform live. When I heard that there was going to be a tribute concert in my home town, complete with symphony and electric band, I knew I had to be there. It would be the closest I would ever get to experiencing the man himself (unless you count his visitations in my dreams.) Frank Zappa was a critical, meticulous artist; some might even call him a control freak. The thought of a concert performance of his music without his presence --his ever insistent shadow-- bordered on the absurd. Still, the thought intrigued me. The night had been arranged by Joel Thome, a long-time admirer and some time collaborator with Frank. Joel has been widely acclaimed as an accomplished interpreter of both classical and contemporary orchestral music and as a strikingly effective conductor of opera, and other music/theater works. He had been involved with projects as diverse as 'The Age of Varese' before meeting Frank. It seemed natural that the two would eventually meet. After all, Edgard Varese was the motivating factor behind Frank's decision to become a composer. Joel worked with Frank on the 'Zappa's Universe' project, which won a Grammy in 1994 for 'Best Rock Instrumental.' Joel was becoming more and more appreciative of Frank's work, and in his own words, has said, 'What struck me immediately was the wonderful, even startling originality of his work and the depth of knowledge that was involved in it. Right away I noticed how often he would credit Anton Webern, Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky and, in particular, Edgard Varese. I felt that a composer who paid this sort of homage to colleagues was a very special person indeed.' The evening was to begin with three orchestrated pieces which Frank had written for a project called 'The Perfect Stranger,' which Joel originally conducted in 1993. The Seattle Symphony is good, and I'm sure under Joel's direction, they could achieve brilliance, but I wondered about Frank's primary criticism with performances of his own orchestrated works. He has said: 'I don't think there are going to be that many composers in the future. ...You can't just write music. I don't think it was ever really that much better, but things are getting especially tough now because there are no budgets for the performances, no budgets for rehearsal. If a chamber group or an orchestra does a performance of something, it's probably something that's already been written for hundreds of years, and the orchestra already knows it, which means that they don't have to spend money for rehearsal. They play only the hits...' Learning to play a new piece is tough enough, but when you consider the complexities in Frank's music, which challenges even the most advanced musicians, I had to wonder just how Frank would feel if he were there. Suddenly a chill went down my spine, for I had the feeling that he was there. This night was for him and he was there. As critical as ever. I could feel him cringe as the orchestra began to warm up. The orchestrated set consisted of three pieces: 'The Perfect Stranger', 'Naval Aviation in Art?', and 'Dupree's Paradise.' Overall, they were enjoyable, but the orchestra seemed strained, and slightly, almost imperceptibly, out of synch with the spirit of the piece. The audience adored the performance, but I could see Frank frowning, shaking his head, and holding his hands to his ears. Except for the second piece, 'Naval Aviation In Art?' The spirit seemed to flow and the orchestra struck a mood which was truly inspired... and then it ended. It was all too short of a piece. During the intermission, the crew began setting up the equipment for the second half of the show. I was getting excited! A drum kit, an electric piano, electric guitars, and was that Ike Willis mingling with the fans? The second half of the set had alumni from Frank's own band joining the orchestra! Along with Ike Willis, there was Tommy Mars, Walter Fowler, Chad Wackerman, Tom Fowler, and the star attraction, guitarist Steve Vai. They called themselves 'The Band from Utopia,' named after one of Frank's albums. Joining this lineup was the vocal group, The Persuasions, whom Frank had heard in 1970 and signed to a recording contract on his own Straight Records. Ike Willis was the star of the evening, hamming it up with the crowd and displaying a cheerful and playful demeanor. All the musicians had their chance to shine under the spotlight, and it was very apparent why Frank had hand-picked these individuals to be in his band. The performances were truly fine, and they worked very well with the orchestra. Some moments were truly inspired and you could feel the spirit of Frank summoned forth in full magical force. Highlights included a unique a capella version of 'Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up' performed by The Persuasions. The song 'Sofa' was performed flawlessly, and the fusion of jazz, orchestra, blues, and rock blended so perfectly that you would swear there was only one music; THE music. But the highlight of the evening was a spectacular version of 'Inca Roads.' Not a single nuance was out of place. The orchestra, rhythm, searing guitars, complex vocal arrangements, and syncopated harmony of the piece all fell into place, leaving no doubt as to what Frank had envisioned when he wrote it. There were other magical moments and a few disappointments. Frank's extended whimsical jazz orchestra piece 'Waka Jawaka' was gaining steam and taking on a life all it's own when the horn section of the orchestra seemed to stumble. Joel tried desperately and emotionally to eke some passion out of them, but they floundered and the piece went down with them. Again I felt Frank's frustration as he seemingly pulled at his hair. Frank Zappa, the man, is gone from this world, but we can be eternally grateful for the rich legacy he has left behind. As long as there are daredevils such as Joel Thome to continue to push the boundaries and expand the horizons of Frank Zappa's music, we will always have the man with us. In that knowledge we can find great comfort. =========================================================================== THEY DID THE MONSTER MOSH By DJ Johnson It was that time of year again. Garage Shock! Bellingham, Washington's yearly bash that brings out some of the most knowledgable music fans in the world. People travel from all over this country (and world, for that matter) to see great bands bash it out at the 3B Tavern over a four day stretch. Mono Men, Impala, Swinging Neckbreakers, Galaxy Trio, Hentchmen, Man Or Astro-Man...these are just a few of the bands in this years line-up. Cosmic Debris Issue # 1 was going to be a big review of Garage Shock. Let's skip the part about finances scuttling the trip. Let's talk about CROCK SHOCK! Seattle's answer to Garage Shock, held at The Crocodile Cafe. The Friday night lineup sounded mighty attractive to my wife and I, so off we went, my sister's camera in tow. We arrived an hour and a half early, so we ordered dinner. Nice surprise. We'd never eaten there before, and the food was excellent. The service was, too. So two stuffed Man or Astro-Man fans waddled into the music area around 10:00, after a hassle over the camera and a long wait for the bouncer to confirm that Coco, Man Or Astro-Man's bassist, had given me permission to take pictures. Detroit trio The Hentchmen opened, and we found them to be...well, ya know, this isn't a review. Look, they played, and then Los Hornets played, and then The Boss Martians played...okay, it's a review, but only for a few seconds. WOW! I'd never heard the Boss Martians before, but I'm a fan now. Evan Foster is one of the best surf guitarists I've ever heard. I can't help but believe he would have been a guitar hero in the 60's. The rest of the players are great, too. I didn't hear anyone overdoing anything. They were all perfectly complimenting Foster's stellar surf guitar work. Most of the show was instrumental, but they did throw in a few rockin' vocal tunes, including an impressive version of The Trashmen's classic, Surfin' Bird. Okay, review over. Back to the topic at hand. Without being morbid or boring or both, let me just tell you that I am what you'd call "the walking-crippled." I can walk, I use a cane, and I have no business standing up for very long at a time. Lots of pain. And so I sat for the first three bands. But when it was time for Man Or Astro-Man to perform, my wife and I headed for front row center. And there we stood for close to an hour, or at least I suspect it was close to an hour, as the road crew struggled with the band's mondo-insane-o set. Yup, a set. Several TV's with old sci-fi flicks playing on them, a couple trillion feet of plastic hose, bull horns the size of Texas, a movie screen behind the drum set... You name it, it was back there. Finally, the band walked through the crowd right next to us and onto the stage. And BAM! We were suddenly facing a monsoon. These guys just flat out go crazy on stage. Coco The Electronic Monkey Wizard nearly imploded at least twice! Birdstuff, the drummer, was soaked in sweat after half a song. Aliens shouldn't sweat! It's not safe! But they just can't help it because they're going at mach 4. Captain Zeno jumps up on Birdstuff's kick drum and balances on one foot, rocking dangerously from side to side and assaulting his guitar with hammer-like blows to the bridge. Star Crunch aims a karate kick at Zeno's leg, missing by perhaps half an inch. Zeno launches himself backward and somehow manages to miss Coco by a good foot and a half, while Coco spins in hysterical circles but never misses a note on that trippin' blue Dan Electro Longhorn Bass of his. It's made of something like formica. How totally appropriate. Everything on the stage, from the electronic gear to the instruments themselves, looks like it was purchased in a junk shop on Venus. And the whole damned effect is highly intoxicating. Save your money and don't buy that tab of acid. You won't be needing it in here. Come on inside. Here's yer 3-D glasses. Nothing's actually in 3-D, but we have a dress code, y'know. All of this would be meaningless if the music sucked. This is Man Or Astro-Man, my friend, so no worries. While the look seduces your eyes, the sound envelopes you, soaking you with reverb, propelling you with the power, until it becomes that elusive total experience. "Mind Trip" is such a cliche these days...but it fits. They are the total Mind Trip band. They claim to be aliens. Preposterous? We'll talk about it after you see them live. And then... The power is what ultimately starts the trouble. A few hundred people who've downed five or six hundred beers, some speed and God knows what else, are feeling the power too. It starts with dancing, then a few people dance with a bit too much enthusiasm, and next thing you know, it's not a concert anymore. It's Demolition Derby with human vehicles. The drunken asshole who throws his head into your chin doesn't feel a thing. He makes Beavis look like Stephan Hawking. You, on the other hand, hurt like hell and have at least two fewer teeth than you came in with. Just about the time you finally realize this, Neanderfuck comes back for a second attack, this time accompanied by a few dozen people who look up to him for his intellect. BLAM! Now you're on your knees, trying desperately to get up while the throbbing of your now twisted ankle fights the idea. Look out! It's a Dork-Tsunami! Yup, our friend from Mensa is comin' in for the kill with about fifty other football players who were pushed through college, and there you are on one knee, holding your teeth in your bleeding hand and watching the oncoming wave of fools. There ain't a thing you can do about it. Night night. Try to land on your wallet before losing conciousness, or it's gone. It's a week later and I'm still a hurtin' unit. My sister's camera took an un-scheduled beer bath as my wife and I tried to make our escape. Then my wife and I took even more beer to the face and chest. God, I hate beer. I'm a whiskey man. If you're gonna dump anything on me, make it Jack Daniels and not that GREEN label crap, either. Black! Got it? So a bunch of drunks ruined an otherwise great night for us. And not just us. There were a lot of refugees walking out of that place along side us. I decided to ask some of my friends from various music email-lists what they thought of Moshing. I was surprised to find that nobody wrote in favor of it. I received so many messages from people relating their own moshing horror stories that I briefly considered compiling them into a humungo-article for Cosmic Debris. But in the end, I decided I'd just tell you what happened that night in Seattle, and let you be the judge. I will tell you that the average email response I received contained at least one sentence depicting moshers as idiots. Some offered suggestions on how to get even with moshers. Good taste prohibits my passing that info along. One was so terrible I was compelled to turn off my computer and wash the screen. It's not too likely, though. Unless you drive your car into the club, where would you attach the other end of the jumper cables? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reviews by Alan Wright contact: head13@aol.com THE JUNKYARD DOGS - "Good Livin' Platter" (Sympathy 10" EP) Hey, you can't fool me! I know that this 10" record of countrified, acoustic based tunes is really The Supersuckers plus friends from Mudhoney, Steel Wool and more in disguise. Sure, there are a bunch of guest musicians, and everyone's taken on ridiculous pseudonyms like "Eddie Cheddar," "Smokin' Doobage" and "Marko Armani" (gee, I wonder who that could be?), but I'm in on the whole joke. Actually, as much as you may want to presume that this record is just a joke, it's also really good. There's only two original songs on here, including the title track, "Good Livin'" and "Unwanted Man." The other six songs are comprised of a strange selection of covers: "View From Here" by The Gories, "Drug Store" by The Dwarves, "Breakin' The Law" by Judas Priest, "Ambition" by The Fall-outs, "Born To Cry" by Dion and "Gates Of Steel" by Devo. The stripped-down, hoe-down sound is carried out with instruments like slide guitar, washboard, stand-up bass, harmonica and so forth, combined with a chorus of female backing vocalists, for a street busking type sound. It all sounds like it was a lot of fun to record, and the covers are remarkably well executed. Hearing them country-fi The Dwarves and Judas Priest is hilarious, and The Fall-outs cover is rockin'! This is indeed worth checking out. GAS HUFFER/RED AUNTS Split (Sympathy 7" single) This is a great 7" release! First of all, it's a picture disc with Gas Huffer dressed up as women on their side, and The Red Aunts dressed up as men on the other side. To drive the concept home, Gas Huffer cover The Red Aunts' "Teach Me To Kill" with "Tomasina Price" vocalizing and playing the organ, while everybody else in GH switches around on instruments. They manage to get a very cool and garagey sound on this one, too. The Red Aunts take on Gas Huffer's "Hotcakes," but for some reason title it "Cupcakes," and it still sounds like they're singing "hotcakes" on the chorus! I don't think their version is quite up to Gas Huffer's, but it's a nice try. VARIOUS: "We're All Normal, And We Want Our Freedom: A Tribute To Arthur Lee and Love" (Alias triple 10" EP set) There's no denying that the '60s folk-rock band Love were in a class all of their own. Their first four LPs are bonafide classics if you ask me, and so a tribute to Love with modern bands interpreting their songs seemed like a great idea. Unfortunately, the person who compiled this didn't do so hot of a job. As with many a tribute LP, especially those related to major labels, half of these bands probably don't exist and are just studio hacks who have no idea what the hell they're supposed to be doing. Case in point the Rocky Erickson tribute from a few years back that really sucked. Well, this pretty much sucks too. Most of the bands, in some lame attempt to "modernize" Arthur Lee's songs, end up blaspheming them instead. There are a few exceptions: Urge Overkill do a faithful version of "Robert Montgomery," and Uncle Wiggly's "My Flash On You" captures the original's garage-rockin' charm. On the other hand, Gobblehoof's ridiculous "Alone Again Or" captures absolutely none of the original's orchestrated virtues, and local boys Love Battery should be drawn and quartered for their massacre of "No Matter What You Do." I wouldn't be surprised to find out that most of these bands had never even heard Love before they were corralled into recording songs for this release, because most of the bands on here sound like they don't have a clue what Love sounded like! TEN FOOT POLE - "Rev" (Epitaph CD) This is the best punk rock record I've heard in a long time! It's got speed, it's got melody, and it's got cool lyrics. In fact, the songs are so darn catchy that I couldn't help but find myself playing this one over and over again. Two guitarists provide a hard edge, and the singer can actually sing. It's pretty obvious that these guys are heavily influenced by Bad Religion, and have the knack for penning the kind of songs that stick in your head. They have a similar cynical approach to their lyrical content, as expressed on songs like "World's Best Dad" which has the lines "You pray to God and wonder just who's up there/what kind of father would leave his kids alone/in a world where you're lucky if your mom cares/hordes of people call the streets their home." In "Old Man," they sing of "a place where no one locks their doors," and yet admit that we've can't go back to the times when that was probable. Tunes that will remain in your head, words that mean something...you need this CD. THE GOLDENTONES - "Atlantis" (Bigmom CD) These guys play instrumental surf music that has much in common with Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet. Like that group, they take the basic surf sound and update it without it sounding lame. They also add elements of other musical stylings for variety's sake. Their first full-length CD, "Atmosphere" was a mostly surf-oriented affair, but on this one they expand a bit. Not that the surf element isn't still predominant on songs like "F-Forward," "Praying Mantis" and "Freestyle," but they mine a more rock territory with tunes like "Spitfire" in which they forgo the reverb for some harder-edged chords. "Departure" finds them in a moody, waltz-tempo mood with some shimmering guitar work. Being an instrumental band, they understand the importance of not fitting into one genre too much, and on this CD they do a fine job of proving that they can express themselves with just guitar, bass, drums, and some fine tunes. THE CAMPUS TRAMPS - "Curves Ahead" (1+2/Get Hip CD) The Campus Tramps are another one of those bands that subscribe to the "school of '77" philosophy of punk. They're not particularly concerned with being "politically correct." In fact they don't seem to be concerned with much except singing songs about girls, cars and being young. I think they hail from the U.K. "Thunderbird" could either be about the car, or the wine, depending on your point of view. Most of the songs, with titles like "Outta Sight," "Wild Time" and "Get Ready" are under the two-minute mark and share a similar aesthetic as bands like The Devil Dogs, by far the easiest comparison I can come up with. They do a pretty cool cover of DMZ's "Lift Up Your Hood" and they put Jayne Mansfield in the liner notes. It's raw, it's fun and that's about all that matters. DEAD MOON - "Ricochet" (Sympathy 7" single) The latest offering from this Clackamas-based trio is this 7" release on the Sympathy For The Record Industry label. I hope that this means a new Dead Moon full-length is on the way, but for now these two songs will do. The A-side is "Ricochet" and it's the usual blast of raw, garage-style rock that one comes to expect from Dead Moon. The flip though is a slightly melancholy ballad with Fred and Toody sharing the lead vocals. It's the kind of song that makes your heart ache, but I still want to play it over and over again. THE PRIMATE 5 - "She Cleans House" (Rat City 7" EP) I've always had a penchant for liking bands with silly gimmicks. The Primate 5's silly gimmick consists of wearing ape masks when they play. What they play is a pretty irresistible kind of garage punk, complete with cheesy organ, and recorded in wonderful Mono. "She Cleans House" is a catchy '60s Punk type tune with ridiculous lyrics. The B-side's two numbers include the instrumental surf romp "P-5 Theme" and "Bullet Train" which is a speedy punk rawk, and funny. This is cool! BUM - "I Am Superwoman" (Au Go-Go CD) This latest Australian release from the wonderful Victoria BC band Bum may also be their last with this line-up. Singer/lead guitarist/songsmith Rob Nesbitt recently quit the group, but Bum plan on continuing with a new guitarist (recent show's have had band pal's like The Fastbacks' Kurt Bloch and The Smugglers' Nick Carswell subbing on guitars). "I Am Superwoman" takes it's name from one of the greatest movies ever made, Russ Meyer's magnificent 1970s opus, "Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls," and features a selection of unreleased tracks and songs from singles. "Your Name Was Next To Mine" starts it off, and is one of the unreleased tunes, a very catchy and melodic pop-punk number. You also get the excellent "Your Disciple," which was featured on last year's excellent Popllama CD "Wanna Smash Sensation," but here it is the 7" single version. The B-side of that, a crunching version of The Dictator's "Weekend" with Mr. Bloch on guest guitar is also on this. There are some other great cover tunes on this, as well: "Got Yourself Together," a Stones song from 1966 gets a revved-up treatment, as does "My Pal," originally by Aussie hard rockers God. Their version of The Only One's "Oh No" really shreds, and whoever is singing this one (there are three Bum singers) gets Only Ones singer Peter Perret's unique vocal style down perfect! They even tackle Japanese punkers Teengenerate's "Don't Come Close To Me." This is a totally rockin' release, and don't forget to check out the surprise "bonus track" at the end, a live version of another Stones song that I can't remember the name of, but it's off of one of their less interesting '70's or '80s releases, I think. YOUNG FRESH FELLOWS - "(Hey Everybody) It's Gorilla Time (Telstar 7" single)/"Benzadrine Beat" (Au-Go-Go 7" EP) These two 7" releases have to be two of the strangest YFF's releases in a while. Of course, the Fellows have a habit of doing these sort of things. Remember that "Gun Sharpeners" 7" from a few years agothat had a B-side that was all of ten seconds long? Of how about that freebee single they gave away at the CD release party for "Low Beat Time?" At that show, I ended up with about twenty of those things because people just left them lying around after the show. I guess there's more and more people without turntables these days. With that in mind, you should probably only buy these if you have a turntable. The first one, on Telstar records features yet another foray by the Fellows into "monkey rock" with the odd "Gorilla Time." Scott Mc Caughey sings in a sort of falsetto style, and they seem to be going for some sort of "budget rock" sound. The B-side is called "Mo' Gorilla" and is a continuation of side A. The record jacket has the dance steps for "doing the gorilla," if you're so inclined. The "Benzadrine Beat" 7" comes housed in a real cool sleeve, like those sleazy 1950s expolitation books about beatniks. Side A features "99 Girls" and "She Won't Budge," two of my fave songs off of "Low Beat Time." These two tracks were recorded at Audio Recording on the same equipment used by The Sonics and The Wailers in the '60s. Needless to say, they both Rock, with a capital "R." The flipside has "Got My Feet On The Ground" and "Ballad Of The Big Three." (The Big Three were a Liverpool "merseybeat" band in the days of The Beatles) Both tunes are good R & B style songs, and sound like they were recorded at the same time as the A-side songs, but remained unreleased until now. THE MC5 - "Powertrip" (Alive/Bomp! CD) If you don't know who the Motor City 5 were, I don't think I have the space to explain it to you. If you do know who they were, then you may want to investigate this new CD release (also available as a ten inch vinyl release, with less tracks). It's a compilation of previously unreleased and recently excavated recordings by this legendary Detroit "protopunk" group. The extensive liner notes inside will tell you all you need to know about the recordings, but for your benefit, I'll capsulize here. Highlights of this release inlcude: an instrumental version of "Looking At You," one of their early singles from 1968; the supposedly "lost" MC5 song "Black To Comm," from 1969 (I've been dying to hear this one for a long time!; and killer covers of blues standards "I Put A Spell On You" and "Born Under A Bad Sign." The material on this CD is culled from their most experimental, feedback drenched days, and also includes "jam" numbers like "Head Sounds, Pt. 2" and "I'm Mad Like Eldridge Cleaver," both of which clock in at 16 and 19 minuted respectively! These two "songs" certainly show off the bands appreciation and influence of Sun Ra to the the nth degree! Finishing up this release is an absolutely crunching live version of "I Want You," a song originally by The Troggs that the 5 took and made into a song all their own. You want to see the "roots of grunge?" Look no further than songs like this! Those seeking a first exposure to the 5's music might be better off checking out their actual album releases of the period, such as "Kick Out The Jams" and "Back In The USA," but for fans of the MC5, hearing much of this stuff is like a dream come true. THE TELL-TALE HEARTS - "High Tide (Big Noses & Pizza Faces)" (Voxx/Bomp! CD) Back in the days of the mid-80s "garage revival" scene that revolved around The Cavern Club, there was no doubt that the Tell-Tale Hearts led the pack of "paisley undergound" bands that were popping up everywhere. They combined primitive and snotty mid-60s garage punk with R & B and Blues influences, and had in Ray Brandes a great vocalist. Bill Calhoun played the keys, Eric Bacher was the guitarist, Dave Klowden the powerhouse drummer, and Mike Stax (publisher of the great Ugly Things fanzine) the "bass that ate San Deigo." These guys had it all: the "look," the sound, and the carefree attitude. What this CD does is collect both released, and previously unheard material. The cover design, and CD title is a hommage to The Rolling Stones' "High Tide & Green Grass" LP. The first 5 tracks, culled from the band's first demos, show them at their primitive best, covering some obscuro '60s tunes, including the insane "Crackin' Up," originally by Texas lunatics The Wig. These tunes, except for "My World Is Upside Down" which appeared on on of Voxx's "Battle Of The Garages" compilation LPs, have never been issued before and now finally you can hear them! The rest of the CD compiles five re-mixed tunes and one outtake from their self-titled debut LP, all of their "Now Sounds Of..." follow-up EP, a rare Australian single and three live cuts, including a great version of The Seeds' "Satisfy You." Recorded between 1984-86, this release is a testement to this great, but shortlived bands great garage sound! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- U R B A N I A ! By James Andrews "Hello! Welcome to Cosmic Debris, issue #1, and more specifically, my column! I'm Jim, and on behalf of all of us here at Cosmic Debris, Inc. I'd like to welcome you to our readership. You should meet the other reader, cuz he's actually a pretty nice guy, for a prison inmate and all. Anyway, I digress. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah. I think it was boobs. Oops. Did I say that out loud? For Christ's sake, I don't think I can write a column about boobs. What I meant was that I was THINKING about boobs. Er, I think I digressed again. What I was ACTUALLY trying to do was titillate the prurient interests of minors, while it's still legal here in Washington State. If the GOP has its way up here, they'll come and burn your computer if you have this article on here. HEY MINORS!! PENIS!! VAGINA!! SEXUAL INTERCOURSE!! Ya know, I think I just figured something out. I think that the GOP REALLY just wants to censor the things that titillate THEIR prurient interests. I bet that all we have to do is wait and see what's on their blue-pencil list, and, BINGO! We know what turns on the GOP. Although, now that I think about it, WHY you'd wanna turn on the GOP is beyond me. I think, to me, that "fucking Republican" is just another way of saying "Republican," and is not in ANY way meant to be taken clitorally. Of course, I don't have any reasonable alternatives to give you, alternatives to the GOP, that is. The Democrats had a party in the 60's, maybe, but now all they have is a hangover, as far as I'm concerned. I say we elect Robert Shapiro as president in '96. Now THERE'S a guy who doesn't make any excuses for being slimy. I get the feeling that there was a crossroads in his life where his mind was furiously debating: "...Well, if I DO become a lounge singer, I'll DEFINITELY get the chicks...Of course, if I become a lawyer, I'll get to help free murderers and rapists, ya know, give something back to the country that reared me...I KNOW! I'll become a lawyer, and keep lounge singing as a night-time gig, so I can get the chicks AND free murderers and rapists..." Now, as far as O.J. goes, this is all I'm gonna say about it. Ever. You know he's guilty, I know he's guilty. A.C. Cowlings knows he's guilty. And he's probably never gonna serve a day in prison as a convicted man. Ok. Enough said. Now, if you have any brilliant ideas on who to elect to the most telegenic job in the free world (um, president, that is, not judge...) I'd love to hear them. If you're an angry Republican, I'd REALLY love to hear from you. Especially if you're an angry YOUNG republican. If you ARE an angry young Republican, and you forgot what your opinions are, just go outside and look at the bumper-stickers on your vehicle and write down what they say on them. If you don't know how to write, just put tracing paper on the bumper-stickers and trace anything that doesn't look like a picture to you. I'm sorry, but "This Truck Insured by Smith & Wesson" will NOT suffice as an opinion. Okay? AND I'd like to hear your ideas on which of your roving band of Reagan's rabble rousers would finally save this country from the Evil International Gay Conspiracy once and for all. (All of us "liberals" are just patsys for the Gay Conspiracy, ya know.) So good-bye for this month. Jim Andrews E-Mail: ohchrist@usa.pipeline.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- And now, the cultural portion of our zine. Thank you. Thank you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ROSES ARE FUCKED: Our two cultural offerings for the month of June are a study in contrast. THE PRISON OF GANYMEDE They are free To wander, aimlessly, From the solar shelters, where Packed in shelves for flesh they Soak in moisture dripped in sweat From the one above who Soaks in moisture dripped in sweat From the one above who... Forgotten... forgetting, They come enter the stone mouths Of a world never born, wishing an answer... Rasping out pressurized lives Gouging deeper into the dark. Forgotten by the ones before, their victims. Could they remember, would they feel sated? Profiteers, murderers, rapists, thieves... Scrapping, digging, hauling, heaving... In a corpse world, beneath the foreign sky. This existence they find so familiar. Fathers, sons, mothers, sisters, siblings, Convicts. Barred an old mother world They can't remember To mourn. Wishing for an answer to an exile They can't remember. Memory... Privilege lost for guilt From the ones before They can't remember. Fathers, sons, mothers, sisters, siblings, Victims. Ore laden rock sent to who-knows-where, Traded for one more day's imported air. They can't remember Why they are resolved To live another day. --J.C. Hendee H O R S E Y (I) Once there was a pretty pony. Children called it "Agonony". Then it broke its leggy boney, Now it is some cheap baloney. (II) "Daddy, where's our precious pony?" Asked the eldest, little Joanie. "Gone to live with Old Mahoney, In pastures green, at Rancho Crony." "Can we go?" begged brother Tony, "May we please?" cried sissy Nonnie. Daddy's voice turned very groany, "Let's not get all whiney-moany!" Mama's heart was not so stoney, When Baby wanted "ony? ony?" Tears fell on the macaroni, As she chewed her "abaloni".... Its flavor tasting somewhat phony, Not quite fishy.... more like.... horsey. - cybr/\w/\spydr ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- And that about wraps it up for issue # 1 of COSMIC DEBRIS. We hope you found it entertaining. COSMIC DEBRIS' World Wide Web site can be found at - http://www.greatgig.com/cosmicdebris The site is new, and not exactly jam-packed with fun stuff yet, but we're working on it. Our links will grow constantly. One of our goals is to provide you with an outstanding jumping off point for web surfing. We'll also continue to search for sites that will satisfy the twisted mind, and add them to our links. One thing you can do already at The Cosmic Debris Homepage is download this zine in two forms. An ascii (text only) version and a PC .exe version. Users with MS-DOS machines can download a rather large file (somewhere around a meg) that is compressed with ZIP, and after unzipping it, it can be run and viewed. This version is something we're very excited about. It's made possible by a spiff program from NeoSoft called NEOBOOK. When you run it, you get all the trappings of a real magazine, only no papercuts. Pictures, cool fonts and yeah, even ads. And best of all, it's mouse driven! Click on the article of your choice, and you're there! As I said, it can be downloaded at our WWW site, or you can find it at The Great Gig In The Sky BBS in Seattle, Washington. Cosmic Debris Ezine was born on The Gig, and we think of it as the zine's home town. If you're dialing around looking for a place with good coversation, people who know their music, and a file section to die for, call 206-935-8486. If you would like to submit articles, reviews or anything at all to COSMIC DEBRIS, please do so via email to moonbaby@serv.net and we'll see what we can do. The same address can be used to send feedback to us. In the near future, we may run letters from readers, and those may also be submitted to the above address. Thank you for reading, and see you next month. DJ Johnson Editor =============================================================================