Tapping the unprofitable 'zine circuit since 2005.
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volume 04
issue 01
september 2008
Better living through audio.
artifactworkshop.com
AUSTIN CITY COUNCIL 20XX
PLACE X
Platform - Sustainable urban development - Cycling activism in city hall - Public transportation solutions - Promote green technologies - Transparency in local government
allendemling.org
FOR LASTING PEACE
SECURITY FOR ALL
email to the directors Dear Misprint, I know by submitting this letter and inquiry I am open to be punished by your words and wisdom. It's obvious to you who read this that, NO, I do not have a beard. I am but a lowly coffee slinger who does not play music in this town. But quite simply and to the point, I and my dear friend have begun the misfortune of putting together our own publication (that will in no way be of interest to your readers). What is the right thing to do in publishing your own publication, and what is the wrong thing to do in publishing your own publication? I know it's best to learn from mistakes, but seeing as how you've most likely made these mistakes I see no point in making them myself. Keep up the good fight, and perhaps we can meet up at PURE in a few months for a lovely adult vodka beverage.
– Sincerely, Clayton
(Editor’s Response) Wait you want us to do the hard work for you? So you've taken a long look at this town and decided that what it needs is not more bike lanes but another 'zine? Congratulations, you've taken the first steps down a path to severe depression, alcohol abuse and no sex, ever. Kudos. Part of the fun of crafting your own crappy publication is that you can really do whatever you want (Slander? No, it's satire!). But here's a few random pieces of advice: 1. Don't fuck with Camel Cigarettes. 2. If you get advertisers make sure they either smoke no weed at all or shit tons of weed. Then at least you'll know what to expect. 3. Don't ever book bands. For reals. 4. Your publication should really just be a mechanism to procure free shit. 5. No one cares what you really think. Good luck, bro. When you turn 21 let's not go to Pure for a beer. Beerland is much better.
GUI
vol 04 issue 01 september 2008
GUI
directors
board of advisors
contact
Harvey Merrybottom
Kip Hollingsworth L. Fauntleroy Jaye L. Baitt Callahan O’Callahan Adolph Curmudgeon Col. Alastair Tunbridge (Ret) Abelard Fiddlebits Jan Tschichold Yngwie Malmsteen JT Money
www.misprintmagazine.com hollaback@misprintmagazine.com www.myspace.com/misprintmag
Director of Co-Conspiritories
Chadwick Pennyrich III
Director of Visual Arts & Languages The views expressed here are strictly those of the authors, and do not represent the views of Misprint Magazine, which is kind of weird because the ideas of author and entity are actually entirely codependent of one another, but fuck it. This also applies to all our advertisements.
For inquiries, kudos, hate mail and the rest, e-mail Misprint at the above address.
continued To Misprint, Great magazine. Your UNsite is so UNsite-able. UNsites are so Web 3.0. Why bother putting any information here? It's not like you douchebaggots are on to something. By the way, you totally wish you owned douchebaggot.com. Keep on fagging up Red River, God, I actually DO feel better after writing this, – Maximum Penitrator (Editor’s Response) I think in a fight to the death between douchebaggot. com and oh, say, shitmyjorts.com, I think we all know who the winner would be. We don't use any variant of the word "douchebaggotry" anymore, ever since we got that lame Editor's Pick from The Chronicle. We're still stringing together the scraps of our precious street cred. What will be funnier is when we win it again this year after doing even less work. It's not like they're gonna toss that bone to The Onion.
Misprint, You are invited to help us stick it to the man by blasting some of the loudest music in ATX! This show is in protest of the proposed amendment to the current sound ordinance in Downtown Austin. The residents of downtown want to reduce the current 85 decibel limit to 75. If you don’t know the difference between the proposed reductions, just think of it like this. It would be like listening to busy city traffic, approximately 85 decibels, then listening to a washing machine, approximately 75. Now this hardly seems fitting for “The Live Music Capital of the World”! (Editor’s Response) You're fighting the good fight. Unfortunately, it's a fight that Misprint can't get behind because we've explicitly stated that one of our goals is to make Austin the Live Background Music Capital of the World. Wouldn't it be much more fun to talk to your friends with a beer in hand, perhaps discussing the art you are sort of thinking about making, while some band plays quietly in some dark corner? That sounds pretty sweet to me.
A few words from the Directors... "I hope I die before I get old." "Don't trust anyone over 30." In the dull moments between passing around mason jars of narcotics or gallon jugs full of homebrew, every generation allows some hippy blowhard to make some pronouncement about growing up. And now, with the release of Misprint's Grown Up Issue, everyone's probably expecting us to step into a pair of expensive, pointy shoes and become the voice of the Broken Generation. Fuck that. We'll let the full-color glossies deal with that nonsense. Chadwick Pennyrich III
Harvey Merrybottom
This is our fourth (and probably last) publishing year and we're much too busy expanding the staff with nubile interns, high-rise office spaces and shiny new Pantone 1545 yoga ball chairs down at HQ. And for you, the reader, it means a more dignified and mature Misprint, free of the vapid articles about boring local music and tired street-art collectives that were par for the course. Instead, Misprint now represents the needs and values of a more mature readership with knocked-up girlfriends and upside-down mortgages and a taste for golf metaphors. We were once the true voice of Austin's disaffected youth but now we've realized the need to pander to the old guys who have all the money. We sort of like to think of ourselves as the New Yorker of 'zines. So that means a new editorial policy. We're going highbrow. No dick jokes. No huge vector images of poo. No lists that take only two minutes to write. Instead, you're getting serious content about mutual funds, impotency and marital advice. Don't worry though, we haven't forgotten our roots. So if you turn the cover sideways, cross your eyes and stare at it for 45 minutes a huge, hilarious boner will magically appear. Just don't let your kids see it. Cheers,
Stuff we can do to make the next Misprint easier Less alcohol
Early rising
Online only
More alcohol
Methamphetamines
Misprint Retrospektive
Abstinence
Interns
Quit
Lawn Games In ancient days, the Summer season provided a brief window to give thanks to your pagan godmasters for allowing you to live long enough to participate in your tribe's annual solstice bonfire party. Then you mentally prepared for five more back-breaking months of seed planting, goat herding and scar dueling. But since this is Austin, summer is all about laying around stoned for eight months in a pair of digital camo shorts and occasionally serving a mocha frappe to yupsters. This also means daily barbecue parties, never having a reason to go to a bar again and playing yard games with an ice-cold tall in your non-dominant hand. Horseshoes
Invented when cowboys were actually badasses and not Kevin Costner or Will Smith, wranglers played horseshoes when they needed some downtime from running poker houses, getting into epic gun battles in the streets and growing moustaches. In its current benign form the game is really only notable for coining the classic phrase "close is only good enough in horseshoes and hand grenades" and giving me an excuse to wear a wifebeater. Sport Spokesman: Tommy Lee Jones Croquet
This lawn sport is reserved for Ivy-leaguers, members of Vampire Weekend's posse or those with a passing knowledge of cotillion etiquette. If you can procure a keg of Stella Artois and a chamber quartet to provide some beats you'll probably have a pleasant afternoon knocking tiny balls through metal hoops, wearing white shorts and yearning for some upper-caste 'tang. Even though you get to strut around with a blunt instrument, you still look like a pussy. Sport Spokesman: Jude Law Tomahawk Throwing
The complete antithesis of croquet. Just prop a sheet of plywood against your backyard cockfighting pen, crank up the Iron Maiden, grip a 'hawk in each hand and get those bitches spinning. It's never too early too to start greasing the gears of war to prepare for the 2012 zombie insurrection. Sport Spokesman: Lou Diamond Phillips
Bocce
Proving that douchebags from Williamsburg will co-opt anything, including a game played by drunk, fat Italian immigrants, Bocce is 端ber hot right now with the American Apparel set. It's a game that takes 2 minutes to learn and about 8 minutes to master. The only thing easier is getting wasted and arguing, which happens to be a critical part of the game. A quick shout of "less chit chat, more throw that" will get that game back on schedule. Sport Spokesman: Your grandpa Washers
Similar to horseshoes, this game is for people who are too poor to afford horses yet wealthy enough to afford washers. All you need is a handful of them and two pint glasses. Shove the glasses into the ground, crack open a few Pearls and that new Bob Schneider drop and toss those little discs with abandon. It's kind of like the carnival ring toss, but even more depraved. Sport Spokesman: Bob Vila Jarts
This shit isn't for the faint of heart! Imagine Rick Moranis taking four throwing darts and enlarging them to about a foot each. Two teams stand opposite each other with a plastic ring in front of them. With an underhand throw, you toss these insanely fucking sharp darts of death high into the air and (hopefully) land them in your opponent's ring instead of your opponent's skull. This game is illegal to buy due to the horrific fatalities of a few drunk assholes back in the 80's. Your best bet to find a set is to troll estate sales somewhere in the Hill Country. Sports Spokesman: A Genghis Khan/Beowolf/George Patton goat-man hybrid with a 14" cock h
How Old is Your Favorite Bar? Lately, much has been said in the mainstream media about the irrelevance of age. But in a world where Lance can date Mary Kate and Andy Dick can grope a 17-year-old Applebee's waitress, age is truly a state of mind. So in Austin, depending on your mood, you can pick the bar that best approximates your "theoretical" age. If you woke up in a pile of vomit next to a dead shark, you might be leaning towards young. If it's next to a pair of unironic, sans-screenprinted bloomers, you might be favoring old. No matter, because in this town a 50-year-old fat dude can throw on skinny jeans, get a snakebite and a $2,000 fixed gear bike and live the dream. The Side Bar (Age 27) There's no other bar in town closer to my heart than Side Bar. It's not because the amount of money they spend on advertising in this magazine they make back triple from me in less than a month. It's because they stick to the basics: getting me fucking wasted on Lonestar. No extraneous bullshit. Sure, they talk about how they're going to build another women's bathroom and erect a 50foot, soundproof barrier against Red Eyed Fly. It's cute. It totally reminds me of the way I tell people I'm working hard on a new issue of Misprint.
Beauty Bar (Age 14)
Club deVille (Age 33)
It used to be the go-to spot for a nice night out, which really just meant paying $6.50 for a rum and Coke. Now deVille is the frontline in the war of attrition waged by Round Rockers pushing south into our beloved territory. Watch out Red River, these people don't care about gas prices, have refinanced their mortgages and are looking to party. And they also don't take none of that standing-upduring-rock-concerts nonsense.
The Longbranch was once the headquarters of eastside gentrification. The site of ruthless coke-fueled back-alley summits, where countless wheatpasting campaigns were hatched and a salvo of sxsw day parties were launched into the Mexican heart of East Austin. But these days, the bathroom has a lock on it, the bartenders are almost civil, the bands have been kicked out and replaced with listless Hillary bloggers. What the fuck, guys? If I wanted that I'd hang out at the Belmont.
Creekside Lounge (Age 23)
Donn's Depot (Age 76)
Creekside is the Side Bar's wide-eyed, add younger brother; the one who runs marathons, builds schooners and hasn't been ruined by four years of Austin living. Originally, its only notoriety was the "Creekside Combo": a shit in their spotless, empty bathroom and a shot taken out of guilt for smelling up the place. Now with DJ nights, Wii and the occasional shitty band, the bathrooms now draw bigger crowds than 710. Still, it's the go-to spot for people who want to party at a bar but are uncomfortable with the concept of what a bar actually is: a place to drink alone for 3 hours.
Whether it's the ladies jumping into their mom's high-waisted jorts or some dude with a head full of v05 hot oil wearing a striped American Apparel skirt as a poncho, there's no better place for boys and girls to safely explore gender identities and play dress up. And of course, raiding your parents' medicine cabinet is always encouraged. I hear if you crush up enough Lipitor and mix it with Diet Sprite it stops nosebleeds and everyone around you looks like a centaur. Awsmazing!
Longbranch Inn (Age 41)
Old guys wake up early. That's why the good bars open at 10 am. They say that the old folks spend their time thinking about the glory days, but I disagree. I'm totally looking forward to retirement. Luby's buffet every day, sex without rubbers every night and best of all, my inappropriate comments and crass sexual advances are merely dismissed as the foibles of a doddering old man. And if you want to live that life right now and eat free popcorn, you can do it at Donn's. h
Wedding By Wedding West So you've finally found the one. Or you knocked her up. Congratulations/I'm sorry. Either way, there's no avoiding it, it's time to get hitched. So instead of buying 25 years' worth of cocaine and comic books, you get to blow a small fortune* on one magical night where you can't even get drunk. Even though the marriage is going to last 8 months, tops, it's still worth spending 15 or 20 minutes to piece together a decent wedding. Your mom will be so proud. Here are a few tips for navigating the treacherous waters of the wedding-industrial complex.
That's Reverend Chadwick, To You
In the old days, it took decades of study, a metric shit ton of incense and a vow of celibacy to perform a wedding. Today, thanks to the miracle of modern semiconductors, any amoral wifi-theiving heathen can win the eternal favor of the good lord in about 3 minutes. Conveniently, this will allow any one of your convicted-felon buddies to join you and your baby-momma in the bliss of holy matrimony. And hilarity is bound to ensue once they go mad with power and start marrying drunk people behind their backs at the Side Bar. I'd Do A Shot With Your Grandpa
Granny might not be able to get up the stairs of the Mohawk green room or the top of the Blastenhoff Extreme Slide at Schiltterbaun. So pretty much the only requirements for a wedding venue are no stairs, convenient parking and a fucking open bar. Hear that dudes? Don't fuck with me. Open bar! I want to see Houshang freaking out your great aunts with his giant beard while pouring me four finger shots of Jameson, otherwise I'm never going to be able to deliver a decent best man speech. If You Ask Nicely, SuperHeavyGoatAss Will Play YMCA
If you've spent any time in Austin at all, you've probably realized that there aren't any bands that could do justice to the undying love between you and your bride. Instead, try to find the band that can best approximate that love with synthesizers, drum machines and laptops. The less talent, the better, as you don't want to be overshadowed on your big day. As a bonus, this means they're naive
enough to not understand the pay scale. Weddings are considered "premium". Which actually means less money. Also, you're going to need a band that's versatile enough to play the classics, so you and your new wife can share a magical first dance to I Wanna Sex U Up. And "Official Panties" Too
I once saw someone get married at a SINIS show at the Flamingo Cantina. Turns out the lead singer Johnny Thundernips is an ordained minister (see left). After the ceremony, everyone took a shot of Jäger and the band played "Skin Flick" while lighting a bunch of shit on fire. All the guests took home an "Official SINIS Cum Towel" (the one with a bullseye on it) as a wedding favor. It brought a tear to my eye. So unless you can book Slayer to hand out little bongs shaped like WALL•E, you're probably going to come up short compared to that lucky couple. Just stick with lace bags of mints. An RV On The Playa Can Be Romantic
Hawaii and Jamaica are totally played. Instead consider Burning Man or a New York Jets game. If you romantically carry her over the turnstyle, you can probably get in with one ticket. Since this, of course, will be the first night you spend having sex, hopefully you've logged a few hours on the internet so you know what to do. Just remember, if you're both not wearing shoes, you're doing it wrong. h
*Unless you're a dude. Then you can just kick back and wait until you need to choose the colourwave of your 4-tiered giant squid groom's cake.
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On Austin (Wedding) Typography bifurk
As an advocate for typography, I'm probably one of the most-hated people in this city (after the guy that books shows comic sans but surprisingly, I still get invited to a lot of weddings. I for Red Eyed Fly). Letterforms make for a lonely existence, think it's because every damn person I know is getting married and no one has a clue what they're doing. The wedding gotham bifurk invitation is the perfect opportunity to use typography to symbolize what your married life will represent– hope, joy, misery – yet I was shocked to realize most people just pick "fonts" out of wedding invitation catalogs. This is the comic champagne typographic equivalent of having your gift registry at sans The Dollar Store. Here's some of the more popular choices. gotham Kingthings
Typeface: Champagne
If any sort of overly script-like, flowery typeface is Gutteral used, you can tender your resignation for a fun life as soon as that first lined envelope is licked.Kingthings Look forward to an eternity of sitting through Sex and the City reruns, buying Midol from 7-11 at 1Helvetica a.m. and Gutteral bifurk no oral sex, ever.
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Typeface: Comic Sans
sharpie comic sans Helvetica
gotham Perhaps it's my advanced years, but I don't get riled sharpie up about Comic Sans anymore. Type purists are shitting their jorts at this pronouncement, but fuck champagne it. I've resigned myself to the horrible ubiquity of Comic Sans, much like I have with cover charges, Kingthings high gas prices and White Denim.
Typeface: Gotham
Typeface: Kingthings
A hit with the Renaissance Faire/LARPer/RPG set, I like barrels of mead, lutes and free fencing lessons as much as the next guest. But I draw the line at witnessing your best man sashaying down the center aisle in a centaur costume. Too bad my homemade broadsword is stuck at the smelter for the next fortnight. Typeface: Helvetica
I haven't been too big on Helvetica ever since I got into a scarification duel with the great-grandson of its namesake. There's just something so sterile about its design. Also, people in Scandinavian countries don't even marry anymore. They just cash their government handouts, drink beer and make hats.
Gutteral
Oh, how cute! It's the official typeface of the Barack Obama campaign. Your ceremony will most likely Helvetica feature a non-offensive, multi-denominational blessing, bird-friendly faux rice to throw and, in lieu of gifts, donations to your favorite charities. sharpie Your bright-eyed hope makes me vomit tears of happiness. And there's no way there's an open bar.
Typeface: Gutteral
This one at least has some promise, as long as you've booked Gwar as your house band, the Satan's Cheerleaders lead everyone through the "Funky Chicken" and all of your bride's exboyfriends are sacrificed on a funeral pyre in the middle of Lady Bird Lake.
bifurk
Typeface: Bifkurk Typeface: Sharpie
comic sans
Interesting. Either tips just aren't what they used to be at Barfly's or you just found out yourgotham girlfriend is 8 months pregnant. Any way you cut it I'm bringing my own bottle of MD 20/20 port. champagne
Kingthings
Using one of the default fonts from Beauty Bar flyers pretty much screams that you're too young to get married (and too young to get in the Beauty Bar). I'll give your joyous union about, say, 8 months before I take your distraught ex somewhere cool like Beerland and seduce her. h
Dear statement holders. Here's your current investment mix. Try not to scrutinize it too carefully - it will totally make your head hurt. It'll be easier if you just take our word that this is legit. However, if you want to make any changes to your plan act quickly because football season is about to start. Go Jets!
MUTUAL FUND
Your Current Investment Mix
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A Wood Burning Stoves B Old Growth Timber
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C Power Washers D Kurt Russell Memorabilia E Gold-plated Diamonds
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F Party Photo Booths
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Gains / Losses
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A Tattoo Removal
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C Hearing Aids D Camel Cigarettes E Laser Face Scanners F Condoms
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G Adamantium
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H Woodgrain Steering Wheels
f Misprint Brand Success Rates A Beard & Moustache Competition B shitmyjorts.com C Cocktoberfest '08 D Misprint Magazine
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E $7 Dollar Challenge
The
Guide to Faking Your Death we don’t love to hate. we hate what we love.
Perhaps the most important part of growing up is coming to grips with commitment, accountability and adult responsibilities. But at some point, maybe after a shitty day at the coffee shop or botching game six of the 1986 World Series, it's natural to entertain the fantasy of a fresh start. But what would it take to genuinely leave your life behind? I'm not talking about something pedestrian like joining the Peace Corps or deleting your Facebook page. I speak, of course, about genuinely flipping the script on your dead-end life and faking your own death. It's reliable, proven and one short trip to Mexico away. Now do us all a favor and get to it.
This is not to be taken lightly. It's not about finally putting a stop to the awkward drunken bootycalls with the ex-girlfriend. It's not about watching your funeral Huck Finn-style to see which of your grief-ridden friends show up to get blasted on the free Nattys. This is about living in the crater of an extinct volcano while building doomsday weapons and drinking Mai Tais with 2Pac. With such great rewards, it should come as no surprise that faking your own death is non-trivial. It takes commitment, discipline and hard work. Try to ignore the fact these are precisely the things you're trying to avoid. Unlike extreme powerlifting or your beehive or your other dilettante hobbies, a fake death is not a flavor of the week. Dead means dead. A resurrection, though undeniably miraculous, will earn you nothing but disdain and jail time. Showing up alive in Laredo with a beard and a hangover is not going to make you anything like Jesus. Just because you're standing there, it will prove considerably more difficult to convince your bureaucratic masters (or your former friends on the internet) that you are in fact, actually alive. And as anyone who has spent time at the dmv knows, it's a lot easier to throw your recently deceased ass in prison than to figure out how to reprint a social security card. With the risks in mind, prepare to join the ranks of the heroic cowards who have thrown off the chains of income taxes to achieve their dreams and/ or avoid federal prosecution. I speak, of course, of inspirational, still-living men like Niccolo Machievelli, Heath Ledger, Kenneth Lay and John Stamos. They all showed the foresight to disappear at the height of their cultural relevance and remain to this day just vaguely remembered.
Preparation is critical. Gradually, alienate your friends by dropping out of your moped gang or street art collective. Spend your newfound free time consolidating your humble assets into pesos or rubles. Remember, it will look suspicious when the victim of a sudden, tragic accident is caught with five pages of pending ebay auctions for his prized collection of Image #1 comics. At the very least you'll need cash and a fake id, preferably something better than the one you bought to sneak your underage girlfriend into Black and Tan. As far as the exact method goes, this is a matter of personal taste. Sadly, dental records and dna have put a stop to the days when all you needed to do was lurk in the cemetery, exhume a genderappropriate corpse, put him in your car and push the whole flaming mess off a bridge. Likewise, no one is going to believe that when you're not busy bussing tables you pass the time doing epic, Steve Fossett-style feats of solo-aviation. So, an autogyro crash in Svalbard probably isn't your best bet, either. Suicide and murder are best left to Coen Brothers movies and bribing coroners is too expensive. I recommend the tried and true "lost at sea" (as popularized by L. Ron Hubbard). Travel to a second-world country, buy a bottle of bourbon and rent a boat for an introspective solo sailing trip. Get naked, drill it full of holes and sink that shit to the bottom of the sea, sending your old identity, your debt and all your troubles to a watery grave. Swim to shore baptized anew. Now go ahead and start your new life. Try not to fuck it up this time. And whatever you do, don't come back. h
The
we don’t love to hate. we hate what we love.
Interview
Straight out of Nashville, seminal singer-songwriter David Berman got the short end of the stick after Pavement got rich. But with a killer new record and a tour on the way, we finally got a chance to ask him about Will Oldham's cock.
Misprint: Your beard is looking healthy. Any notable beards from your youth that have been especially influential?
As a friend, I encourage his art, and am technically supportive of his choices. I hope he got both balls in there without using any computer animation.
David Berman: I grew one in 1996 and have mostly had it since then. It's something to hide behind. I'm tall and have overly large face. Back then my hair was receding and a beard seemed to redress the balance. I probably took my inspiration from the Old Testament, Matthew Brady Civil War photographs, and the Band.
I've heard you are a big fan of the Tennessee Titans. Is it just Vince Young's incredible package?
The front cover of your new album reminds me of Black Flag's Damaged. Then I thought maybe the record is a reckoning of some adolescent icon? The cover of "Lookout Mountain" is faux-historical, faux-epic, but it's more than an absurdity. Compared with the absurdity of real history, the toy elephants seem to be doing something really profound. They are in danger. They are on the move. Way beyond the toy box, far from childhood, unaccustomed to the treacherousness of hardcore nature. Huh, I see. So, I'm a huge fan of the Meat Puppets. I hear the best parts of the pre-gunshotin-the-stomach Puppets in your records, but that could just be me. You're right! Up on the Sun is one of my foundational records, and when we chime we aren't thinking about the Byrds so much as the music of the 1980s. Did you see Iron Man? I'm so glad that engineers have finally been accurately portrayed in film. I loved the implied robot-sex scene. It's depressing how long the Wiki page for that movie is. All scripted movies are stupid wastes of money. Documentaries are what I like to see. But I haven't seen a movie in years. So you didn't get to see Will Oldham's dong in that super boring stoner flick Old Joy?
The year they stopped being the Tennessee Oilers, they played the most amazing season of football I'd ever seen. Ray Lewis used his evil to cripple the team the very next year. He is a nice person again, now that he has retired. It seems like a lot of popular acts are making a living selling their "southerness" What does it mean to be from the American South these days? I think part of the problem with the idea of southerness is that it pretends to be threatened. Southerness has become such a clichĂŠ. Mostly stuff people have picked up from television whether they know it or not. Sure your grandparents were farmers, but you're probably just like every other American your age. It's a way of claiming an exoticness that isn't really there. Culture isn't saying "Y'all" and eating grits. Those are just tiny remnants of otherness that make people feel special and different. It's kind of a corny anti-intellectual pose and it has been ever since country stars from the southeast started wearing cowboy clothes. I never thought SST records would move to Texas, or that Greg Ginn would play in a country band. What's with country music? Is there just something seductive about sensitive rednecks? Country music is my favorite American art form because of the stories and the humor and the sadness. The most important thing is realizing that jackasses like Daryll Worley and Charlie Daniels are only the face of country music in the worst of times. They're making money off the American flag and it's embarrassing. h
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First East Austin Investment Property As hip as: A fixed gear motorcycle. Comments: Gentrification is beautiful. But it's even better when you're the landlord and ripping off some scrappy, aspiring musicians from Wichita Falls by charging them an arm and a leg to live in that dirt floor shed next to your half-finished motorcycles. You'll feel guilty extorting that extra tribute money for protection from the "super scary east side ninja gangs" but if you cut them in on the cockfights every once in a while I bet they'll hardly notice. Rating:
First Time You Steal Something from Your First Real Job As hip as: Videodrome, the musical. Comments: It's one thing when you're smelting down stolen napkin dispensers to make rent and your only nutrition is pilfered 5-gallon buckets of commercial-grade Sysco pickles. But, once you crack into USA corporate, it's all gravy. And by "gravy" I mean looted boxes of lined index cards, misappropriated Ozarka water coolers and unlimited free faxes of your penis to Thom Yorke. Rating:
"it feels like the first time.
First Confession As hip as: Getting to second base during the Spring lock-in. Comments: So after drinking a few Red Stripes with Jesus at the Flamingo Cantina, he told me to set the record straight on a few things: masturbation is definitely not a sin and bong rips are in accordance with his teachings. Also, that club "His Place" was "totally not my idea" and dudes should never wear sandals, ever. Rating:
First Second Marriage As hip as: Calling your Volvo "Lolvo." Comments: Unless it was a shotgun wedding, your first marriage was probably for love or some similar, nonsensical abstract concept. The second time around make sure you marry for the right reasons: to end a conflict between warring tribes or for a bitchin' dowry of seven dozen goats and a Wii. Once that's settled, wife #2 has to let you go to Bonnaroo with the dudes and shoot horse tranquilzers into your eyeballs, guilt free. Rating:
LAME <-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------> AWESOME
it's not a tumor. Hulk Hogan Mr. Nanny
The Rock The Game Plan
Ice Cube Are We There Yet?
Vin Diesel The Pacifier
Arnold Schwarzenegger Kindergarten Cop
? First Time with a Prostitute of Indeterminate Gender As hip as: A dinner date with Spike Gillepsie. Comments: Face it. At some point you're going to be high, horny and incredibly lonely. Suddenly, swapping wads of sweaty cash by the ice machine at a La Quinta doesn't sound so weird. But how does one find a hooker if you're not Elliot Spitzer? Try responding to an ad in the back of Hard Music Magazine and keep your fingers crossed that someone gender-appropriate shows up. Rating:
First Tattoo As hip as: Pounding Lonestars at a Minor Threat show. Comments: Since dueling scars have gone out of style, pretty much all you've got left to immortalize your ill-conceived teenage rebellion is a killer tattoo. Make sure it captures the ideals you will reliably expect to live up to for the rest of your life. Something like straightedge, veganism or love of Hip Hop Taz. Rating:
whoah whoah. the very first."
First Run for City Council As hip as: Getting tattoos of the Beastmaster's thighs on your thighs. Comments: This is the one that counts, because you and your dumb-ass giant beard are so fucking unelectable that no one in the legitimate press will even bother to dig up your long list of felony convictions. It doesn't hurt to take note that campaigning exclusively at the Side Bar to your degenerate ex-con buddies is not the sure ticket to City Hall and access to the doomsday bunker underneath the Treaty Oak. Rating:
First Period As hip as: Trying to be a decent, reasonable boyfriend. Comments: People keep asking why it takes so long to publish Misprint. I say it's because we really only get one week a month to work on it. It's the time of the month when my ladyfriend ignores my text messages, gets extra sensitive about the misogyny in Total Recall and consults Judy Blume's seminal text Are You There God, It's Me Margaret? Rating:
First Time Defeating The Mother Brain As hip as: Pounding tallcans with JUSTIN BAILEY. Comments: There's always something magical about your first time; the butterflies in your stomach, the electric feeling of young love, the coy nervousness. For me, it was when I had 255 missiles and the Icebeam and finally destroyed the Mother Brain, defeating the Space Pirates and restoring order to the Galactic Federation. When Samus pulled off that helmet and let down her long, luxurious green hair I nearly shit my jorts. Not to mention the lifetime of gender identity issues it sparked when I realized after 500 hours of gameplay that this totally sweet space bounty hunter was also totally sexy. Rating:
Great schools! Real-estate bargains! Amazing nightlife! A Panther mascot! These are a few of the things you get to look forward to. Misprint rounded up 14 of our closest enablers to find out how the other, other, other half lives.
(Things I Learned While Partying in Pflugerville) Go Prepared
It would be foolhardy to embark on such a mission without adequate preparation. We stuck to the essentials: a purple minivan that resembles the Millennium Falcon, a map drawn on human skin, two pints of ether, a Misfits tape, a roll of razor wire, gloves to handle the wire, a disgraced city councilman and a Lambourgini Countach tank top. We made a quick sacrifice to a few of my favorite squid-headed drinking gods and set sail north. C. Hunt's Icehouse Is Probably The Sweetest Bar In Austin
C. Hunt's is sort of a shed decorated with Vietnam-era camo to hide Soviet tanks, picnic tables, washer pits and the cockfighting ring from government satellites. Buxom moms serve buckets of Bud Heavy and coax absurd tips from the sickly, monitor-tanned, Twitter-addicted software engineers who haven't seen a three-dimensional woman since that titty bar in College Station. The estimable, 450-year old proprietor Chester Hunt roams the grounds. He's hollerin' at me for leaning on his tables while slapping girls' asses and generally being a crotchety old man. Lie to Yourself
When confronted by a place like the Parmer Lane Tavern, a dank, former Dollar Store turned final refuge of the broken, one might think it's impossible to order fourteen $1 jello shots in assorted colors and maintain your dignity. Not to mention this bar is more depressing than a Zoloft commercial played
upside down. When faced with such adversity, the only reasonable course of action is to put on a Lambourgini tank top and force the one friend who showed up late to the carpool to pretend it's his bachelor party. This theme was carried through the rest of the night. You Will Never Escape Live Music
The Texas Bar and Grill is behind a gas station on a Mopac access road. "Teabags," as it's affectionately known by the local fauna, is the kind of bar with ashtrays in the bathroom and a VIP basement where out-of-work roofers play ultra-low-stakes Russian Roulette. It's not the kind of bar you expect to pay a $3 cover to endure the soul-rending buttrock of the house band 8-Ball Down, who seemed at least mildly retarded. Tense negotiations with the doorman ensued, but he was no match for the unbridled power of booze-driven irony. For our trouble I was rewarded with another dozen jello shots, an inflatable deer head with dirty bras hanging from the antlers and the staunch conviction that I'd rather live out tape #2 of The Deerhunter for all eternity than go to this place ever again. Die Neue Typography: Sans-Serif All-Caps
When you're opening a bar in a strip mall between the Gatti's Pizza and a nail salon, it's important to consider how to make your hott new drinking establishment stand out. Well, the North Austin bar scene has it covered: white vinyl letters on the blacked-out plate windows to let the world know the score: BEER, WINGS and even the dreaded
LIVE MUSIC. This shit works, because despite the fact I was convinced I was walking into a porno bookstore, the 1200pt Tahoma Bold letters on the door made it crystal clear what I was in for. These bar owners are probably getting a bulk rate on graphic design from the dudes who run Austin Daze. Things Can Always Get Worse
A few miles down the road, Raggedy Anne's had a hand-written sign on the door advertising Bloody Mary specials starting at 10 am. Worse, they had karaoke. When Emo's closes and those neck tattoos render you entirely unemployable, all that's left to look forward to are once-a-month nights when you can bribe the in-laws to babysit your screaming brood by slipping them a carton of Winstons. In return, you get a night out with the old gang to butcher the classics. Some dude in a lime-green sleeveless shirt and wraparounds was singing "Piano Man," the irony of the lyrics utterly lost on the crowd. Tuff's Tavern is Tuff On Oldsters
In Pflugerville proper, the elderly barkeep at Tuff's refused to serve a 33-year old father of two because his license expired. This bar is legit because there's an oil painting of the deceased proprietor behind the bar and there's no cussing allowed. Here, things start get to hairy for our bachelor (who has yet to nab a free drink all night). We keep forgetting the fictional bride's name. Someone begins to question her fictional fidelity. And half our team freak out, promptly driving downtown to Red 710 for some dropped D tuning and shitty pizza.
Come For the Free Advice
Players Bar is where all of the hip young things of Pflugerville show their stuff. The Lambourgini tank top is a hit with a 50-something barfly grandma in desperate need of orthodontia. She chastises us soundly for not taking the bachelor to 6th Street, where presumably the real parties are. She then chastises us for not driving Harleys. Then she told the bachelor that he should never get hitched, which is exactly what a groom-to-be needs to hear the night before his wedding. After getting the high score in Ms. Pacman, we all took our shirts off and roamed downtown Pflugerville looking for Hanover's, all the while pretending we were members of the U.S. Olympic Diving Team. It seemed reasonable at the time. Beers + Shots+Manly Sports = Profit
Who hasn't spent a shitty night at Emo's longing desperately for a bar that combines mediocre live music with extreme beach volleyball? Well, there's Aussie's, but that place sucks. Well look no further, because there's Hanover's, a fairly legit bar that unaccountably has a giant volleyball arena out back, presumably for patrons to settle their disputes in impromptu, well-choreographed beach volleyball games a la "Playing With the Boys." I can't wait until they tear down the stage at 710 and install a squash court. h
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Old enough to know better. Young enough to put music first.
Laurie Gallardo Texas Music Matters Austin Music Minute Radio Without Borders
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3 BILLION BANDS. 7 GRILLION DOLLARS. THE GUIDE TO THE
2008 AUSTIN SHITTY LIMITS FESTIVAL Reasons I'm not going to ACL this year: Leather pants at cleaners
At home reading the Constitution
Not in the Foo Fighters
Still hung over from Bonnaroo
Good shit going on at Beerland
Working on my art car for Burning Man
On a 3-day mescaline trip getting ready for the secret Spiritualized party at the abandoned theatre underneath Highland Mall
No Wilco this year
Press pass got lost in the mail
At home in the air conditioning drinking great beer and listening to Live at Leeds on CD
In jail
Moved to Chicago because Lollapalooza was way sweeter
Drug test on Monday
Don't want my blanket to get stepped on
Playing flip cup
Campaigning for Ron Paul Doing a medical study
I'm going in Second Life Working on next issue of Misprint
The Handy ACL Band Rating Spread. This Shit Writes Itself.
FOO FIGHTERS I was a little surprised to see Foo Fighters listed in a big font instead of the small type reserved for bands of similar cultural relevance like Scott Biram and the Old 97's. I heard we're only stuck with these dadsters because Chas Attal couldn't pull together the threeheaded virgins, Unniseptium and queso required by the Radiohead tour rider.
SOUTH AUSTIN JUG BAND
KEVIN FOWLER Guns, Bait and Ammo is the name of this redneck rocker's upcoming album which, coincidentally, was almost the theme of this issue. We changed our mind after realizing this would make us come across as small penised, closeted gay and poorly dressed.
Other than their annual ACL slot, I don't think this band really gets out much. They've played more shitty sets at ACL than Wilco, Cat Power and Neko Case combined. What do you expect from a bunch of guys who sit around in South Austin and blow on jugs all day?
SPIRITUALIZED J. Spaceman is pretty high. And after making 17 albums about recreational abuse of Cyclopropylmethoxy-3, no one is convinced his recent 6-month hospitalization was really for "double-pneumonia." He'll be rocking a spacesuit and a probably a gospel choir or harpists or some shit. It will be a good set to take a break from the weed and get into some of those serious downers you smuggled into the festival in your tube socks.
THE RACONTEURS Now that there's no weak-ass Meg White sex tape to ruin ACL like last year, Jack is ready to dress up like a Napoleonic general and play some dumb blues songs with his starving, stoner buddies. Just keep your fingers crossed that no video of Jack's naked and translucent ass surfaces on Pitchfork the week before the fest.
THE FRATELLIS If you start with Franz Ferdinand, take away the good looks, nice clothes and catchy songs, you're left with the Fratellis, a dour, talentless three-piece collection of homely Glasgowean brothers. Since they're all related, it's probably safe to assume their sucking is genetic. Not everyone wins the genetic lottery and gets born a Gallagher.
TEGAN AND SARA THE MARS VOLTA This band is Dream Theater for the modern 14-year-old who likes getting fucked up on prescription anti-depressants stolen from their great-aunt's bathroom. Not to mention all their lyrics are randomly generated by spambots running on some Chinese subnet. The crowd for their set will be 100% male.
You might think that I simply dismiss Tegan and Sara because they're Canadian, identical twins and androgynous faux lesbians. This is not the case. I dismiss them because they are the suck. They just need to cut this goofy shit out and find some Texan boyfriends to take them out for barbeque and Shiner Bock. Either that or they should start making out T.A.T.U. style, because you know that's what you've been thinking about, you pervert.
MGMT VAMPIRE WEEKEND Remember the Arctic Monkeys? Peter, Bjorn and John? Voxtrot? Me neither. Well, in about a month they'll probably be waiting tables at the same restaurant. At least they can fall back on those expensive college degrees while pawning their boat shoes on eBay.
AMERICAN BANG I like southern-fried sex as much as the next New England expatriate. But when it comes to drinking with a southerner with integrity, I'd rather down a shot of Jack D. with Foghorn Leghorn in leather pants than these seaweed-haired, bottom-of-the-spittoon asspros from Nashville. These dudes make me long for the Black Crowes.
The fact that this country is constantly fooled by emaciated art school dropouts from Brooklyn who start joke bands and fall ass first into huge piles of dough makes me cry every time. The only way these guys scrape a pass is because it's obvious their record took at least 2 days to make, as opposed to the usual one. (LCD Soundsystem, I'm looking at you.)
The Geezer Graveyard
SILVERSUN PICKUPS The Silversun Pickups are pretty terrible. I hated them the first time around when they were called Smashing Pumpkins. Listen Corgan, that floppy wig isn't fooling anyone. You should have learned your lesson with fucking Zwan. Go back to blogging. It's all you've got left.
YEASAYER
JAKOB DYLAN
A few years ago I was up in arms about shitty bands co-opting random subcultures, but now it's spread to aping entire 3rd world countries. If one more band from Brooklyn decides to change their sound by throwing a lawn dart at a spinning globe, I am going to kick them back into the Great Diaspora.
It must be pretty unfortunate to be the talentless spawn of Robert Zimmerman and some supermodel. It must be even tougher to watch your dad being played on the big screen by Cate Blanchett, because you know he totally got a boner during Shakespeare in Love.
GOGOL BORDELLO Gogol Bordello is doing a pretty shitty job of dispelling gypsy stereotypes. Fortune telling, beaded necklaces, bad teeth, stealing babies, hoop earrings, concertinas, horse whispering, living in conestoga wagons and robbing people doesn't help. But if that scenester art school dropout is a gypsy, then I'm fucking Yul Brynner.
CONOR OBERST
BLUES TRAVELER
This dude is basically the godfather of emo. Unsurprisingly, this isn't all that awesome. He doesn't get to have sex all the time like the Godfather of Soul or shoot people and eat meatballs all day like the actual Godfather. Instead, he spends all day shopping for pearl snap shirts, going to discos with the Faint and fretting over his haircut.
If you've been feeling pretty down in the dumps about life and love lately, take solace in the fact that you don't have to wake up every morning of your life, wipe the sleep out of your eyes and immediately remember that you are a member of Blues Traveler and can never eat an entire Little Ceasers pizza on your own again.
JENNY LEWIS Jenny Lewis was in The Wizard. I also saw her boobs on the internet. Apparently she writes songs too.
DAVID BYRNE Byrne has been sort of whack lately, but he's got so much awesome stored up in those giant ill-fitting suits of his that we've got to cut him some slack. Besides, when he's not making 24th-century alien elevator music, homeboy stays busy designing high-concept bike racks and hanging out at airport bars hunting cougars with Brian Eno. David Byrne wins.
JOHN FOGERTY Rumor has it that he'll kick off his set with a 40-minute, extended jam version of "Heard It Through the Grapevine" which will then only leave him enough time to mumble something about baseball and crawfish before he Hoverounds off the stage.
ROBERT PLANT Robert Plant used to fly around in a jet with a fireplace in it. He's violated more teenage girls than the senior belly-button piercer at Gadzooks. He is also thirteen feet tall, can shoot lasers from his nipples and has had the same haircut for 45 years. It's probably not going to be like the good old days when he strutted around with his cock hanging out of his ripped jeans oozing pure sex, but the dude still has pipes. Besides, he's like 80, and that would just be gross.
LOUIS XIV Louis XIV are weak-ass fake Brits who wear eyeliner. Worse, they're secretly 40 and only go on tour to try to croon their way into the gold American Apparel tights of 16-year-old Hot Topic employees. Too bad these duders pass out alone every night praying they'll wake up as the Jonas Brothers.
BECK What's going on Beck? We liked you when you were super sad and writing the break-up album of the decade and not being the spokesmodel for Salon Selectives Conditioner and monitoring your Body Thetans. Cut that damn hair, call back Winona, and, before telling Tom Cruise to fuck off forever, persuade him to make Top Gun II.
Things to Love in Place of a Meaningful Relationship Alcohol World of Warcraft Graduate school My Apple iPhone Beekeeping MySpace Homebrewing Boatbuilding Sewing Bocce Drumming in a band Giant sunglasses Whoopsy The Neil My blog Internet porn Backdraft Your van Twitter Drum circles My teddy bear Your teddy bear The stripper who told me her "real" name My beard Austin Park & Pizza Giant squid Kitchenware from Williams & Sonoma Garlic AA batteries Bong rips (unholy) Fraternal organizations Vegan speed-dating Shit I'm Too Old For Emo's Baconaters Costume parties 'Zine publishing
Four More Years! Healthy living in Austin isn't easy. Pretty much everything that makes life here remotely tolerable comes with a heavy price. It turns out that Lonestar by the case, thousands of free Camels and buckets o' queso aren't nutritionally sound. So it should come as no surprise when your doctor tells you to quit smoking, quit drinking and sells you a blood pressure-lowering cookbook penned by Joe "Joe Cool" Montana. But not to worry. Trusted physicians at Misprint Magazine have devised a simple regimen for healthier living with minimal impact to your hedonistic life of leisure. These easy steps are guaranteed to keep you alive until the Mayan calendar runs out in 2012. Become a Drummer
Quit Smoking
If you're going to drink 20 beers in a night you might as well do something productive at the same time. An evening's hard work of Keith Moon-style thundering can burn up to 600 calories, which is just 230 short of that Baconater you had for lunch. But since you're band probably does mediocre wimp-rock, you need to play ten sets a night to make up the difference. Also, programming a drum machine doesn't count as exercise. The fact that you're negating any positive health results by continuing the existence of another shitty local band is something you'll just have to deal with.
Remember the Yul Brynner anti-smoking ad that came out after he died? Well, that dude was badass in Westworld, so he knows what he's talking about when it comes to your health. Ignoring the health benefits, smoking really isn't sexy anymore. Instead, consider snuff. What could be more attractive or refreshing than pulling out your ornate, screenprinted snuff box and confidently stuffing some flavored tobacco up your nose? I'll tell you what. Nothing.
Go Organic
Who would have guessed all those bio-engineered frozen pizzas and Jersey pork rolls made up of at least 6 second-world mammals aren't all that good for you? It's time to go organic, my friend. And in Austin, "organic" doesn't mean flying your helicopter to Whole Foods for every meal. The true spirit of organic living means raising your own pygmy goats, growing hydroponic broccoli in your shower and phasing out Casino burgers for the freegan ones in the dumpster out back. And just because that goat will eat beer cans, cigarette butts and human flesh, for best results stick to goat food. It makes for better goat gonad insertion surgeries. Alternative Transportation
The hoopla du jour is all about ditching your car and reconnecting to the locomotor that is your body. Bikes are for suckers. I suggest ziplining. Just crawl up the nearest moontower and hook a line to the Side Bar. Bonus points if you zipline a boombox blaring "Keep on Rocking in the Free World" 30 seconds before you make your own plunge. It'll be like breaking the sound barrier, but reversed and more awesome.
Be Kind to Robots
As previous issues of Misprint have asserted, the robots are coming. And they're going to be pissed. Well, as pissed as soulless, unemotional tangles of wire can be as they render humanity into axle grease. They might spare your paltry life and merely enslave you in a copper mine if you demonstrate your respect for machinekind. Try cleaning out your microwave every once in a while, rescuing old Walkmans from the pawn shop or throwing out your non-digital watch. Better have copies of Short Circuit, Iron Giant and Terminator 2 on hand at all times, just in case. Don't Date
Nothing will kill you faster than a string of torrid drug-and-murder-fueled affairs with modelesque members of the European royalty. If you're at Beerland and a six-foot-two brunette with some kind of sob-story and a handgun in her purse says you both need to fly to Monaco right now, don't do it! If things go sour, you know you're going to run into her on Red River every time you go out and you just know it will be awkward. h
Conmen, Crime and Cajones Back in the good old days, Texas radio was the last frontier; a motley bunch of border-blasting cowboys preaching the gospel of country music to whiskey-soaked cattlemen of the American west. Now all we get is John Aielli stinking up the airwaves talking about his garden and spinning Wilco snoozers. So what went wrong? Balls. That's right. Balls. And I'm not talking about the metaphorical concept of "balls" tossed around in lesser publications. I'm talking about spherical, bulging, sack-dwelling balls.
The story begins in 1923 with J. R. Brinkley, a charismatic swindler with a phony medical degree working at a Kansas slaughterhouse. One lonesome night, while passing his shift admiring the spirited and protracted intercourse going on in the goat pen, inspiration struck for the next great scam. Today, one needs to look no further than their inbox to find a host of fast-acting and medically proven cures for erectile dysfunction. But in a pre-spam world, rock-hard 10-inch boners weren't that easy to come by. So, armed with a steady hand and a vague knowledge of medicine, Brinkley invented a male performance enhancement that inadvertently led to the birth of commercial radio. The technique involved surgically inserting slices of goat testicles into the perfectly good scrotums of insecure, stressed out, drunk, closeted gay or otherwise impotent men who felt they were underperforming in the sack. Despite your first instinct, these surgeries did not lead to a baby boom of decadent, flute-playing goat-man hybrids as popularized in the recent documentary 300. Instead, there were a lot of bloody nutsacks, a few outright deaths and enough psychosomatic erections to qualify the procedure as a resounding success. Word traveled fast and, in the years he operated, more than 16,000 flaccid suckers forked over $750 each (today, more than $7,000) for the privilege of allowing a medically untrained, often inebriated con-artist to perform a high-risk elective surgery on their genitals in the back of a truck. He became fabulously wealthy and before long ran out of patients in Kansas and turned to the burgeoning radio industry to extend his reach. He began building radio stations in Oklahoma and Texas and blasting the airwaves with ranting medical advice, the world's first radio call-in show and that Soulja
Boy song. Much like print before it and the internet after it, Brinkley's stations transformed radio into an obnoxious vehicle for advertising and spouting uninformed, self-serving bullshit. Real doctors and incensed goat activists finally stripped him of his medical and radio licenses. Naturally, like most delusional lunatics, he decided to run for governor of Texas. He built a mansion in Del Rio and set up an absurd 100,000-Watt radio station in Mexico powerful enough to broadcast his political agenda all the way past Canada into the ussr. Soviet spies supposedly practiced their English listening to his campaign speeches. This whole story might have been nothing more than a footnote had Brinkley not cleverly filled the time between commercials by spinning records of popular country artists like Bob Wills and Tex Williams. And so the legend goes that a young Robert Zimmerman stayed up late and strained the antenna of his transistor radio trying to catch the faintest whisper of country music bouncing across the ionosphere, inspiring him to change music history and get some goat gonads implanted in his balls. Shockingly, Dr. Brinkley never became governor (despite getting 30% of the vote), either because of his weak-ass goatee or the fact that he happened to be a Nazi sympathizer. Not long after the defeat, irony won the day and his leg was amputated following a botched minor surgery. He died penniless in Texas, besieged by malpractice lawsuits, the IRS and, if there's any justice in this world, an undead herd of castrated zombie goats. h
Free Shit We Got
A thinly veiled attempt, disguised as journalism, to score more free promotional hogwash.*
Out of the Gutter magazine is the self-proclaimed journal of "pulp fiction and degenerate literature." This means it attempts to give a voice to the disenfranchised legions of methjockeys, dope-pokers, switchblade cowboys and suicidal suicide girls who are usually left out of the pages of McSweeney's or The Atlantic. I got my copy at a comic book show from some old-tyme rockabilly drinking tallboys in a paper bag and shooting cap guns at anybody who looked tough enough to be into short fiction about gay prostitutes. Sure, he was from Pflugerville and had a couple kids in tow, but I know that anyone from the mean streets of the PF are no stranger to bullets, brawlin' and loose women. It's an impressive collection of exploitation, crime and sex fiction and conveniently sorted by reading time to synchronize perfectly with your bowel movements. Of course, when it comes to bathroom reading it's no Misprint. Just try to think of it as the methadone to help deal with the excruciating withdrawal symptoms while waiting for another of our ever-punctual issues. Yuppie Pricks: Balls Not long ago, an eminently mediocre rock band called Vampire Weekend was the darling of the press, receiving more metaphorical blowjobs on the internet than Vince Young receives in real life. Despite the fact they sound a little bit like circa-1989 Sting covering Neil Sedaka B-sides, they were able to achieve flash-in-the-pan success by marketing a new vision of the rock-and-roll dream based not in talent but in genuine old-money elitism. The Yuppie Pricks have absolutely nothing in common with those fey shirtlifters except for the fact they're fucking rich. While Vampire Weekend was prancing around the quad chasing cable-knit sweaters, the Yuppie Pricks were busy becoming third degree Freemasons, sucking Satan's fiery cock and doing beer bongs with Chinese president Hu Jintao at Bohemian Grove. Their new record is called Balls and, like all their music, it's about voting Republican and knocking up your housekeeper. Dig it, because in 2k8 rich white guys are due for a comeback. The Laughing: Jungle After a year spent as Red River's version of Siegfried and Roy, the goal of this EP was to make The Laughing seem slightly less gay. To achieve this ambitious goal, they traveled deep into the jungle to study power lifting and gun repair. They were only partially successful. But getting into fistfights with the lead singer of Yeasayer, wearing eye makeup to the gun range and the ritual burning of their giant totemic, stuffed white tiger is at least a step in the right direction. The future is looking bright and with a little luck, theremin free.
Send us your free shit! Misprint Magazine c/o The Side Bar
*I also got a copy of the recent What Made Milwaukee Famous drop on white vinyl. But seriously, who the fuck owns a record player anymore?
Gossip! Gossip! Gossip! Newly inaugurated Russian president Dmitry Medvedev unabashedly revealed to the press his turgid hardon for mediocre British proto-metal act Deep Purple, reinforcing stereotypes about the Eastern Bloc's predilection for only the shittiest of western exports. Turns out when he's not busy giving handjobs to Vladamir Putin, he collects Deep Purple vinyl and claims to have all the picture discs hanging in the presidential shitter. Recently, Russian tax dollars funded a private performance in the Kremlin, which sources report was full of ex-KGB agents in double-breasted suits nervously passing around the one-hitter. ----------------------------------------------------------Biologists at East Carolina University recently named a newly discovered species of spider after undead robotic Canadian rocker/straw hat enthusiast Neil Young. The newly christened Myrmekiaphila Neilyoungi is a ground-dwelling trap-door spider remarkable, like its namesake, for its unique genitalia and fondness for killer one-note extended jams. ----------------------------------------------------------In a story that actually couldn't be funnier if I made it up, The Statesman reported waves of violence against "Emos" sweeping across Mexico. Soccer hooligans, cholos and goths were willing to put aside their myriad differences to start beating up anyone who looks like they might like eye makeup, journaling and/or the combination of black and pink. The root cause has been described as "perceived differences in the stylistic affectations of urban tribes" causing sociologists everywhere to pop giant boners and My Chemical Bromance to start work on a "totally sick" adaptation of West Side Story. ----------------------------------------------------------Reports have surfaced that local drone heroes the Black Angels have been outsourcing a non-union band of second stringers to secretly play their songs to test audiences at downtown venues to ensure that new material is boring enough for real shows. Expect new Black Angels franchises to pop up in every town with a robust marijuana trade.
Brad Pitt and Sean Penn were in town working on a film adaptation of Misprint's now classic exposĂŠ on the 100% true history of Austin's Treaty Oak. The (totally gay) working title is "Tree of Life" or some bullshit, but don't worry, we've convinced Terence Malick to direct so you know it's going to be badass and full of gore. Synopsis: A former heroin addict (Pitt) poisons the tree as part of Masonic Ritual to win the affection of his counselor at a methadone clinic (Penn, in drag). Meanwhile, Ross Perot (Penn, in pancake makeup) maniacally flies his autogyro around the UT Tower while dodging razor sharp boomerangs thrown by a feral tween. ----------------------------------------------------------Hot on the heels of the meteoric rise of warehouse district ultralounge Qua come a number of disturbing reports of fetid shark corpses mysteriously turning up in downtown dumpsters. Qua owners were quick to comment that those sharks were "totally not the same sharks that keep dying in our shitty club." ----------------------------------------------------------A decade after playing the "highest show ever" on the roof of Toronto's CN tower, J. Spaceman got himself booked for the opening of everyone's favorite new physics sex toy, the Large Hardon Collider. Unsurprisingly, fucking crazy Franco-Swiss particle physicists are big into taking Thorazine and jamming out to Spiritualized when they're not busy unlocking the secrets of the atom or "accidentally" destroying the galaxy with a rogue black hole. ----------------------------------------------------------A reliable source reports that C3 Entertainment's Charles Attal has personally bought up all the condos on Red River facing the Mohawk so he can rent them only to verifiable lovers of live music. Potential lessees must disclose the complete contents of their record collections and furnish three notarized documents certifying their love of live music. Business is slow since everyone who actually still cares about bands moved to Portland or New York years ago. So Chas has been forced to use the vacant rooms for "night-care" for daddy rockers, a small ice factory and a chamber to inject a life-prolonging serum of refined Martian ore and minotaur semen into his face.
November 8-9 Waterloo Park Austin, Texas
Tickets on sale at www.funfunfunfest.com STAGE 1 Clap Your Hands Say Yeah The National Atmosphere Minus The Bear St Vincent ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead Deerhoof Rival Schools Islands The Annuals Bishop Allen Centromatic Sleepercar Frightened Rabbit Spinto Band Parts and Labor Colourmusic Experimental Dental School 27 Till We’re Blue or Destroy Paul Green’s School of Rock and more STAGE 2 Shearwater Tim Fite Magnetic Morning (Adam Franklin of Swervedriver, Sam Fogarino of Interpol) Kevin Seconds (of 7 Seconds) The Cynics Ugly Beats Walter Schreifels (of Quicksand, Rival Schools, GB, YOT) Pepi Ginsberg Frank Smith Spot The Revival Tour with Chuck Ragan (of Hot Water Music) Tom Gabel (of Against Me!) Ben Nichols (of Lucero) Tim Barry (of Avail) Tim and Eric Awesome Show Coldtowne Comedy Hour Altercation Punk Rock Comedy Hour Matt Bearden Chris Fairbanks and more comedy TBA! STAGE 3 Bad Brains ALL Dead Milkmen (Reunion/only show) Flipper Adolescents Integrity Bouncing Souls Swingin Utters DOA Killdozer Cromags (jam) Scared of Chaka Young Widows Leftover Crack Trash Talk World Burns to Death Krumbums Mammoth Grinder Cute Lepers Bitter End High Tension Wires Born to Lose STAGE 4 Clipse Z-trip Dan Deacon Grupo Fantasma Kool Keith/Dr. Octagon Dengue Fever Brownout! Franki Chan Toxic Avenger (Paris) Hawnay Troof Starlynx/Bigface Richard Henry Yacht and more