Monday, April 18, 2011

Kung Fu Grip! #4


Kung Fu Grip! #4
Paco Taylor
7730 East Broadway #925
Tucson, AZ 85710
$1ppd, or two stamps

Kung Fu Grip is a time machine, or time ma-zine. Reading it brought me back to my 70’s era living room sitting in front of the furniture-sized-fake-wood-framed television watching ‘Enter the Dragon’ on Betamax while eating American cheese and miracle whip on white bread sandwiches. Of course, I never had a Betamax player, but that’s beside the point, the point is that this is a great zine that captures a past cultural aesthetic in an effective and very satisfying way. Contained within are stories about the Onge, Satun, and Pahang people of Asia, a tribute to his father, and some history of the zine. It’s well written and informative. My only complaint is that it’s too short, but, as the author explains, this is a special ‘free’ issue of KFG that is designed more for trades and is significantly shorter than past issues. Those past issues are now on my search radar of ‘zines to get’. Dig it.

Badwill Newsletter


Badwill Newsletter: Volume 2 Issue 6 Number 10
December 2010
POB 383
Cookeville, TN 38503 $2

According to the people who write this newsletter, Goodwill is a pretty crappy place to work. This is the 10th installment of this newsletter and it doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon. I’m not really sure what to make of this in that all of it is hearsay. If the stories are true, then it sounds like the various stores that these people had worked at were really poorly managed and the workers were treated with very little respect. If that is true, then it seems somewhat institutional, but like I said, it’s all hearsay.

Friday, April 15, 2011

the internet


the internet sucks. seriously, i have near-infinite knowledge of the entire planet at my fingertips and i follow three blogs about music. wtf? anyway, this weekend is zine review weekend (and by weekend, i mean monday).

the picture is Richard Brautigan. 'Trout Fishing in America' is the best book i've read in the past ten years. fyi.