It's Raining Candy Rain!

Candy Rain #2 is here! Speaking on magazines for ladies, the second issue of Bad Idea Potluck's favorite print publication is out! Get your copy of the only legit porn mag for women today! No photo for this post. We only post tasteful pictures of dudes on this blog. And Candy Rain is not about that, bless its heart.

Dumb Comix/Rocknroll Zines

Cassie Ramone has a zine. It's called Shitty Reality, and it is now into its second issue. Shitty Reality #1 is a loose collection of rad Vivian Girls-esque-abilia, like weird postcards and photos from on tour and even weirder drawings. Number 2 is out now and those of you lucky enough to catch the band on its current tour can pick it up.

I'm starting to prefer picking up my reading material at shows. Even the ones I was too lame and sleepy to go to. (It's always time to rocknroll, unless it is time for a nap.) For instance, recently my boyfriend went to see Holy Shit and all I got was this dumb comic. But I really like it. It's a split comic between Matt Chicorel from Holy Shit and Travis Thompson from Thomas Function (who actually seems to have left the band).

Thompson's half of the volume Drop Dead Dumb is pure degenerate comic joy. The artwork marries the high manner of Dan Clowes to the weird-ass energy of Evan Dorkin, and the story told will absolutely not improve your mind. Buzzpop, the other half, was actually a little stylized for my taste, but as we say around here, cold coffee is better than no coffee and I've been a little hard up for funny papers lately.

BIPL Review of Magas

L Hath No Fury (A Tight-Pantsy Drew Mystery) by Leslie Ann Henkel is a "cozy murder mystery" set in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I thought it was a zine when I ordered it from Etsy, but the slender volume informs me that it is a maga. Zines are old fashioned. Self-published DIY periodicals are now called magas. I have no way of knowing if this is meant as a joke, but it is certainly funny.

Joking aside, L Hath No Fury lampoons young and fashionable Brooklynites in the intimate sort of way that only someone of that tribe could achieve. If there is a flaw in it for me, it's that it is full of distractingly incomprehensible illustrations and slang ... um, much like Williamsburg itself. (Couldn't resist.) Maybe that's not a flaw at all. A lot of exposition takes the form of fictive Wikipedia posts and the like, which is pretty fun. Also, the actual mystery is compelling enough for me to want to get the second installment D.I.Y. or Die! in order to find out what happens.

It all has something to do with something called Dear Drunk Girl, a dead graffiti artist, and a mysterious North Face parka. Go here if this sort of thing amuses you: www.deardrunkgirl.etsy.com

More Like Brilliant Idea Potluck

The awesome Jamaal of Seattle sent me this zine he made. Its purpose is mostly just to keep in touch with friends. How cool is that?

He's a recent transplant to the city so he has plenty of people in other states wondering how he is and, like, if his roommates are cool. I know everyone is instantaneously uploading their whole lives to Facebook and Flickr these days but that somehow doesn't dilute the sweetness of receiving an illustrated guide to a distant friend's new life in a far-off, exotic city. 

I realize Bad Idea Potluck has been more about greatness than stupidity these days and I apologize for that. In my defense I think such times as these might call for it. I mean, come on people, Skyscraper just folded.

Humanbeing Lawnmower!!

This is pretty much the best name for a zine I have ever encountered and it gets extra points for containing mostly comics for degenerates. I read all of those first. It also contains reviews and features focused on rock music for degenerates past and present. The first issue even has an interview with Baby Shakes.

One of the reviews of a Gentleman Jesse seven inch in the second issue contains this incisive observation:

"However, if I were thee Gentleman Jesse, I wouldn't title the first song 'I Don't Want to Know (Where You Were Last Night)' [sic] I personally would have written 'Bitch, Pack Your Shit and Get Out.'"

www.myspace.com/humanbeing_lawnmower

Every Rose Has Its Thorn

I won't pretend that I'm not just randomly reviewing what ever I come across because that's exactly what I'm doing. On the other hand that means whatever it is, it caught my eye. This one here, Kiss My Grits #32, was special. I took one look at it in Youngblood Gallery and something just told me it was free.

It got even better once I brought it home and discovered this zine was a detailed and dedicated celebration of power ballads. I love power ballads but I define the term more broadly than this pamphlet. I include such songs as Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven is a Place on Earth." Kiss My Grits #32 specifies:
"Power ballads are love songs, passionate love songs, typically involving a theme of loss or separation or both, which must also include an electric guitar solo." There's also great clip art, song lyrics, poetry and a "power ballad" in prose dedicated to Atlanta.

I can't remember if all of my favorites are disqualified by their lack of a guitar solo or by not quite being a love song. Does "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey count?

A lot of my other favorites come from the Streets of Fire soundtrack. "Tonight is What It Means to Be Young," would be on my Myspace profile permanently if this were possible but I don't think it is. Someday, I'll at least get the DVD but, really, the soundtrack is better than the movie. On the other hand, the movie kind of is a power ballad. It has Willem Dafoe in it.

This might be the zine's address:

P.O. Box 8776
Atlanta, GA 31106

Here's an idea of Streets of Fire. This song actually gives me chills in some parts and I've got the heat on:

My favorite magazine

I have a promo code so I can give five friends or family members $5 subscriptions to Venus Zine. I'm posting about it here because I feel like there should be some kind of benefit to putting up with Bad Idea Potluck (and because Venus said I could.) Message me and I'll figure out how it works.
The article I have in the actual magazine hits the stands March 1, so this is just to share my love for the best music magazine in America.

Camping (BIPL loves cartoons)

This is the first in the Camping comic series by Vim Crony. It appears in Shotgun Seamstress #3 with more to come. The pictures are hard to read but if you click on them you can see a bigger version. We're posting it here so you can check it out if you want to and also because this is kind of a positive-type comic and maybe we have a secret positive side. We have been lucky enough to see some of the other sketches for Camping and we are excited to see the next strip. That, and Mr. Crony has contributed to Bad Idea Potluck in the past and we wouldn't mind if he did it again one day.

BIDPL Review of Zines

I picked up this zine at The Fest in Gainesville this past October.
(I also picked up what they call "the Fest AIDS," but that went away.)

Nuns I've Known by Prunella Vulgaris is a refreshing take on the Catholic school-survivor memoir. Vulgaris wrote a few paragraphs each on eight nuns who taught her in school. She remembers them vividly in all their banality and horror. She remembers some of them affectionately, even if it is sometimes a rueful affection. Others, like Sister Clement, who wore spike heels, she just can't seem to get out of her mind.

A feminist and a punk, there's a lot she remembers with anger.

Like Sister Rita: "Her thing was abortion. She was obsessed. Every morning for a whole year I had to look at a poster-sized picture of a fetus after it was aborted, or on its way to getting aborted, or something. Really, abortion appeared to represent EVERYTHING to her, everything to do with morality, the Catholic faith, rightness, sexuality, femininity. The topic was a receptacle for all her rage, all of her frustration and apparent problem with sex, all of her self-righteous nonsense. This is what seems to happen to people who become preoccupied with this topic from the 'pro-life' perspective, and there is something mind-blowingly unwholesome about it. They find a way to work it into EVERY conversation. Why is this what is on your mind all the time? Doesn't that seem wrong just on a spiritual and, like, human level? Their interest wasn't political--it was personal, detailed, gory, repulsive."

Maybe you can get a copy at www.myspace.com/prunella_vulgaris

Slade v. the Monkeys

September of 2007 found me in Memphis for Gonerfest, a week-long festival put on by Goner Records celebrating the kind of garage rock and power pop that makes you feel violated and then makes you blame yourself.

It's all a hopeless blur of humidity and horizontal stripes but this picture does it some justice:

I know it was real because I still have this copy of a book called Slade Vs. the Monkeys, which I do remember buying at Goner Records.
It's a collection of rock caricatures by someone named Crowbar. Some of the drawings, such as "Beatle zombies eating Chuck Berry's brains," invite an allegorical reading. Others, like "Jerry Lee Lewis riding a crab through a pubic forest" and "James Brown blowing up a beached whale" are clearly just innocent fun. Either way, these are some of the finest artworks I have ever encountered.
You can get it here:http://www.goner-records.com/cart/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2741
If you are ever in Memphis for any reason eat as much as possible and go to the Stax museum.

BIPL review of zines!

I bought Next Stop Adventure #2 from the author, Matt Gauck, who was manning the merch table at a Circle Takes the Square show in Las Vegas. It's an impulse purchase I don't regret because, months later, this account of his meandering , barely-planned bicycle trip from North Carolina to Oregon kept me entertained for two snow-bound days in a Flagstaff Quality Inn.

Throughout the low-budget cross-country ride and a few flashbacks, Gauck trespasses, dumpsters and scams his way into food, shelter and Lollapalooza. I don't want to tell you how it ends but I will say I don't think he's sorry yet.

The little book features charming illustrations and a self-deprecating sense of humor. The humor makes this zine worth reading even if you don't give a damn about bikes or adventure. And the total lack of a DIY-er-than-thou attitude may just subtly influence you to start taking an interest.

In sections with such titles as "Incredible Moments in Vagrancy," Gauck freely admits that much of what takes place, and perhaps the plan itself, is sheer idiocy. Then he gently reminds the reader that, yes, he or she can do it too.

This publication approves.

BIPL is now eagerly checking the mail for Next Stop Adventure #1.

You can get it from Microcosm Publishing:
http://www.microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/zines/2231/

Or from the author:
www.thedreamerandthefool.com