\input zine

\section{Welcome}

Well maybe not, where did you get this zine anyways?

I find myself between worlds (of my own making), and so this is
documentation somewhat like a post card written while waiting for
a bus, and therefore kind of a letter to my friends; probably
some of the material will be alien, since I've never included all
the things that I do in one place, outside of our house. Some of
the things in here I've been saving for a long time waiting for
the appropriate moment that never came. Many have already been
used already. Some is brand new. And one or two were written by
other people and I just liked them. It's also a way to {\it get
rid of} stuff -- once published, I can throw them out in favor of
this more compact storage device.

\midgraphic{215pt}{Our present house, the kitchen with Maria
messin' about. The darkroom now occupies the back dark corner.
Furnishings by Dumpster.}

\smallsection{Our house}

Our house is going about as perfectly as these things can go.
There are six of us: me, Valerie, Greta, David, Donna, Shawn,
Bill. Oops that's seven. Then there's the people who don't live
here but have keys and walk in anytime to hang out or work or
whatever, who we'd trust with our lives: Duke, Michael, Deke,
Matt, Ria come to mind immediately, there's lot's more. Probably
another dozen. 

We are in flux. Donna is in DC visiting her girlfriend Maria.
Valerie is on tour playing music and hawking her records in
Bruce's van. Greta went with her, and Bill hopped trains to meet
her in STL, they rode trains to TX then came back. Phil is
subletting Donna's room. She will return next week. We are trying
to figure out how to make room so he can stay if he wants. Shawn
is in Hawaii, will be back next week but is planning on moving
there in a month. His friend Mark is subletting, but it seems
like he's always lived here. 

\midgraphic{220pt}{Our previous house: Duke, Jeff, me, Greta,
David and Valerie sitting. (Photo copyright Alain
McLaughlin/Reaction! Images 1990)}

It's a busy place here. Shred of Dignity hangs in there. It pops
back to life in a moment and puts on shows, etc. Shawn's Shred of
Dignity Records is selling lots of 7" EPs, zines. Valerie's music
is very successful. Greta's films are in distribution all over
and in festivals. Bill's movie is opening for a major release.
David is building/selling motorcycles with Chuck. HOMOCORE
carries on filling orders. Phil is making music on his 8-track.
Christian is putting together his zine on the house computer.
Deke and everyone else uses it and The Office also for generating
text. The darkroom is complete and developing film. The house
Tr\"uk is hanging in there. We will do a vid/film show to benefit
us.

\midgraphic{177pt}{Our next home. (Photo: NASA)}

I am restless. There is nothing I want to do in this city
anymore. New Mexico is next. Greta is interested. A road trip is
planned for July. Who knows what that will bring. We are always
in flux.


\smallsection{FidoNet}

At this point in my life, FidoNet is more or less complete. My
involvement is limited to sysoping a backwater node in a
comfortable backwater net, a member of the FTSC (FidoNet
Technical Standards Committee), possible FidoNews (FidoSnewz)
columnist if all works well, and holder of the trademarks, no
small matter that.

Fido/FidoNet the program isn't selling for shit anymore; I miss
the money, but I'm no longer willing to do the work. Fido is
still an OK bulletin board, but FidoNet is not a hot network
interface by today's standards. It has some powerful features,
but no one cares, because the emphasis is now totally echomail,
and rightly so. 

But -- It paid my way for four years, got me the Fluegelman Award
and \$5000 cash, two trips to Holland (HobbyComputerClub, thanks
Henk!), ten zillion writeups in ten zillion magazines, (my
picture on the cover of the HCC magazine), a fluff article in
OMNI, and got me laid exactly zero times. Regrets? None (except I
wish I used ``extent'' instead of ``region'' in the nomenclature
-- it would have saved us from all those assholes).

It was tempting at a couple of points to want it to last
``forever'' and I even got a bit uptight about it. But all good
things end, or they become undead.

The nodelist (the list of FidoNet network member computers) is
now solidly over 10,000 entries. That's a lot by anyone's
standards. I'm sure my involvement is not totally over; the
trademarks at least require vigilance, and there will always be
assholes out there requiring legal action to make them desist.

The FidoNet's history needs to be written; amazing things have
happened that almost noone knows about. Very few people have a
good Big Picture. Artifacts are few because of its electronic
nature, but documents do exist.


\smallsection{Employment}

Things are downright {\it oppressive} these days, never mind this
recession-that-isn't-really-happening-really. To get to the
point, I am no longer employable. There is no room for me in the
new corporate state. And I'm not sure I mind.

I am now a computer industry drop out. I can't take all the
suits. I don't like the ``team player'' crapola, a code phrase
for corporate conformity. I won't piss in a jar, nor swear not to
think impure thoughts. The Feds are squeezing corps to hire, not
use consultants. Computer graphics bore me to tears. I am not
thrilled by Windows or Macintoshes. LANs are frequently employee
control mechanisms. I go to Fry's Electronics, and get followed
around by a security guard; swarms of unhealthy, unhappy looking
geeks buy american-flag T-shirts from a big bin near the
diskette-supplies isle, eating sickly pink hot dogs sold out in
the parking lot. And there's no sidewalks there.

Between the early CP/M and PC worlds, and the Fido and FidoNet
saga, I learned more than most people do in a lifetime. I have no
regrets, and I really don't have any interest in that stuff any
more. 

\goodbreak\bigskip%
\lline{\hl Senseless murder}%
\lline{\hl of innocant paper targets}%
\hbox to\bigcol{\hrulefill}%

Guns. Whee! I'm sure I must have some murderous urges in there
somewhere, just waiting to get out and kill a school bus full o'
kids or something. I mean, all gun owners are nigger-killin'
rednecks, or furrin-lookin' mass murderers, right? Oh well.

I wish I had saved the letters I got back from our so-called
``representatives'' when I wrote urging opposition to some
oppressive gun law (``assault-weapon'' registration I believe).
Burton or Cranston or one of those idiots responded with, I
swear, `people who want to own those things are psychologically
sick, and just haven't been caught yet', words to that effect. I
swear. Oh well.

I bought my first gun in 1986, a S\&W model 686 revolver, .357
Magnum, 6" barrel. After getting over the culture shock, I found
that lo! not all shooters are pigs. After shooting at Chabot Gun
Club for a few years, I was still interested, and started
shooting PPC, a somewhat regimented sport allegedly designed as
FBI training. Many people shoot simultaneously with holstered
guns at a series of targets at fixed ranges, fixed time limits
and required number of shots. Pretty friendly, and great safe
introduction to practical gun handling, sight picture, trigger
control, holstering, etc.

Somehow I ran into the three-gun crowd (shotgun, rifle and
handgun). You have to have shot PPC and be a very safe shooter.
Each month a different scenario to shoot in; fake hostage setups,
shooting clinics, weak-hand shooting, run, duck, shoot behind
cover, shoot at bad guys don't hit good guys (cardboard),
adrenalin, time pressure and actually friendly competition.
Safety is utmost. The top 1\% type experts are friendly and
helpful.

I'm a totally out punk fag. I have the only studded holster and
belt in the club. It is a constant effort to balance 
look-I'm-just-there-to-shoot with refusing to be closety or
tolerate ``fag'' jokes and the like. I joined them and so to a
certain extent it's their world. Balance is required. I think my
leather jacket makes some of the cops think ``bad guy'', and my
occasional blue mohawk freaks out the rest of them, but to their
absolute credit they are to a person friendly, tolerant, open
minded and sometimes curious.

One incident bears repeating. A long time and respected club
member referred to some over-specialized sport shooters (PPC with
kilobuck guns, plumb bobs and levels) as ``a bunch of fags''.
Now, he meant wimps, ie.~not very sporting. But that's not what
he said. I was working that event, scoring. I heard the remark,
made to a small group of veteran shooters, and I\dots let it
pass, avoiding confrontation. That day I went home pissed, at
myself, why do I go there, everything you might imagine. 

Three days later I get a phone call and apology. He said as soon
as he made the remark he regretted it; it was not something he
intended, but one of those words you grew up using, that
occasionally still slip out. I told him I was relieved, and how I
felt about not pointing it out at the time. 

The next monthly shoot was also the end of the year party, and
planning for the next year. At the prize giveaway, I picked a
Colt 45 T-shirt, and said something to the effect of, ``Cool,
I'll wear it to an ACT-UP or Queer Nation meeting and piss people
off''; some giggled and some almost choked on their Cokes. 

By the following month, it was out in the open. A bunch of us
talked about it on and off throughout the day, about various
forms of oppression, but most stood a safe distance away
listening, which is fine too. The club prez told me how he gets
funny references to his ethnic origins, and could imagine what it
was like. He said he always wondered how it was for the two of us
(me and Wendy) who simply showed up because we wanted to shoot,
and fit in the hard way; most are friends-of-friends and got
there word of mouth. He was rather proud of the club, and I had
to agree. He also asked ``well, what do you think of us NRA
rednecks now?''.

The national NRA are a bunch of dinosaurian jerks who will
unfortunately probably do themselves in. Their connections to
some of the most reactionary and hateful pigs in the country
doesn't help one bit. The fact is -- hunting and sporting use of
firearms is extraneous. The real issue is protection of liberty
-- an armed countryside helps prevent government from attempting
a violent takeover. Nothing to do with murdering bunny rabbits in
the woods. It's not like we're about to rise up and overthrow the
government (gimme a break), more likely it's the reverse.
Governments always round up citizens' weaponry when they want to
impose ``order'' on them. It's the {\it Second} Amendment, for
shit's sake, right after the First one everyone loves to parrot. 

The only rational mass-market article on gun control I've ever
seen was by Robert Santiago and Walter Lowe Jr., in {\smc
Emerge}, a black cultural magazine, Vol.~1, \#10, September 1990.
(Send SASE for a copy.) ``While white Americans debate the gun
issue, it is African Americans who are killing each other in
record numbers. But there are laws we can support that will keep
guns out of the hands of irresponsible individuals without
compromising the rights of gun owners.'' The article is quite
sane, is not necessarily ``pro-gun'', and even has one of those
``Do you need a gun?'' questionnaires in a little box, with
sensible questions.


\smallsection{HOMOCORE}

Within it's own context, HOMOCORE is amazingly like FidoNet.
Which, in hindsight, isn't surprising, because they were both
mechanisms for communication, and I used the same process to make
them work. Both ended up as worlds of their own. Or was it
coincidental timing, and it was all about to happen anyways?
We'll never know.

Homocore the movement (lower case) was inevitable. Once again,
for the record, Bruce LaBruce and G.B. Jones of JD's fame coined
the word. I do acknowledge that HOMOCORE the zine (upper case)
spread the concept like wildfire. It wasn't shit luck, it was
simply work. It's so obvious to me that so many things fail for
simply not stating in plain language what it is they are trying
to do. JDs clearly stated their goal. I did in HOMOCORE too, the
``You don't have to be gay\dots'' mini-manifesto. Sometimes
things are so simple.

\#7 is the final issue. It's gotten too much out of hand. You can
read about my personal reasons why in the editorial, but also,
it's a financial drain, and I want my life back. 

And for all I know, it could get me busted. Violence? Skinheads?
Muggings? War? Financial disaster? Mass pollution? Medical
disaster? Noooo problem. I can take care of myself. The only
thing I fear in life is getting spuriously hassled or worse by
the Feds. 

I don't know how many people are really aware of the truly
foreboding systematic suppression of speech and communications
going on now. Frankly, it's terrifying. And seeing how it's all I
do, really, set up communications mechanisms, I'm scared
shitless. 

Money-wise, each issue of HOMOCORE ran real close to break even.
For previous issues, I ran it close (my readership is extremely
poor), and on paper ``made'' about 5\cents/copy, including only
printing, postage and envelopes. That 5\cents\ covered paper,
phone calls, gluesticks, etc, and of course meant it was really a
slight loss, but that's OK, it wasn't meant to make money, only
support itself, and close was close enough.

But \#7 is a total loss. Printing cost was \$1100 (2500 copies,
64 pages; \#6 was 1500 copies, 32 pages), postage on each \$1.21.
Not only did I underestimate the postal increase (to
29\cents/oz), I did not take into account the word-of-mouth sales
would still be thinking that it was \$1 per copy, instead of \$2.
On top of that, it had been almost a year since the previous
issue; I had a lot of orders for \#7 pre-paid at \$1 each. It was
impossible to get those missing \$1's, and the point was to get
the zine out, and so I just ate it. Even after I sell the 1200 or
so copies remaining, I'll still be about \$800 in the hole. Oh
well.

Great timing -- right when my consulting job was ending, I dumped
my free money into the propane Rambler, with no further income in
sight. I had a backlog of 400? 500? orders total during the
period February -- April, some dating back to August 1990. I was
getting third letters from people ``where is my zine, I mailed
you a dollar in\dots''.

Diet Popstitute, the sweetheart, did a benefit for HOMOCORE at
the new Klubstitute May Day '91, and netted me \$200, which got
rid of {\it all} the backlog! Up to date, only a year later!

So I still have over 1000 copies to move. They are \$1.20 each in
quantity, cover price \$2, if you're interested\dots

\smallsection{Typography}

It was probably inevitable that I'd pick up Donald Knuth's 
\TeX\ system. It has all I hate to love and love to hate --
machine independence, procedural/programmable instead of
graphical paradigm, completely public domain, obscure, hard to
operate, impossible to debug, monstrously complex and difficult
to learn. (After over two years, I still consider myself barely
more than a novice \TeX nician, though I have written output
routines, and hacked fonts with METAFONT.)

I did all eight HOMOCOREs in \TeX. And oh my, do the early ones
look {\it awful}. \TeX\ purists would shit bluebirds if they saw
it. I used it to simply {\it jam} text on a page. With \#7 I
opened it up a bit, went to 11 point typeface, and bigger
leading, though there is still 20 continuous pages of monolithic
text without a single graphic. (Not even dictionaries do this.)
My only defense is that HOMOCORE had to be bottom line zip zero
cost, hence the density. The readers didn't mind, or at least
they put up with it to get what they wanted.

But \TeX\ is capable of incredible beauty, which I'm slowly
noticing, having abused it for years. Too bad there's no money in
it. The usual story -- nobody cares except us perfectionist
assholes. In this age of prefab TV foregone conclusions, it's
nice to have some thing that you'll never quite master.

\smallsection{Road Trips}

A road trip is planned for this July. It was originally going to
be to the Rainbow Gathering in Vermont first week July, with
stops in Boulder Colorado to visit Richard Lowrider, and the
Radical F\ae rie sanctuary in Short Mountain Tennessee, and then
on to New Mexico, the last as a visit and a future-home scouting
trip.

Eventually we realized we were looking forward to New Mexico the
most, and dreading the drive through the Midwest and Northeast,
myself especially. It's a dreadful drive after the wide open
West. So we decided to skip the Gathering and go directly to New
Mexico instead. Details to follow.

There seems to be a wave of people fleeing the City to parts
Otherwise. And lots of energy in the direction of New Mexico. Is
it the Law of Fives (once you start looking for a thing you start
seeing it), or is it really a pattern? Both, but emphasis on the
latter. New Mexico has a long weirdo tradition. 


\smallsection{Automobilia}

My current car is the 1963 Rambler Classic 550 Cross Country
Station Wagon (whew!) you see pictured here. If you got the
complete package, you can read all the grubby details about it's
LPG conversion.

I bought it from Len's AMC Auto Wreckers in San Jose, two months
before he scrapped the whole yard and sold out. I bought it
without an engine, and towed it home with my 1970 AMC Hornet,
also picture here. 

The Rambler was an intentional project. I wanted a car I could
travel and sleep in, and still use in a city. I disassembled my
1970 Hornet to build it (and I disassembled my 1979 AMC V-8
Spirit to build that; I used to autocross (SCCA SOLO II) the
Spirit, so it was pretty high-performance). The Rambler has the
infamous fold-down seats (after 27 years, the original upholstery
is still in great shape), and all folded down, the inside
dimensions are 8 feet long by 42 inches wide -- enough room for a
twin size futon plus 3 feet of length. All in a 3150 pound, 108
inch wheelbase car.

Valerie made it curtains (not completed at photo time) and it's
got the Hornet's rugged 232 ci.~6 cylinder motor with a custom
grind propane camshaft, AMC 4WD V-8 cooling system, 60 amp
alternator, gigantic truck battery, the largest 14-inch tires
available, aluminum hi-tech wheels, '79 V-8 disk brake system,
brand new custom-ratio gearbox with manual Borg-Warner Overdrive,
a custom box for the roof rack to keep camping junk off the
seats, stereo, CB, scanner, fluorescent lighting, a real LP
stove, a photovoltaic panel to charge the lead-acid if I drain
it, 10 gallons of extra LPG, for a worst-case range of 400 miles
(at 16MPG). It's safe to say the whole thing is hand assembled.
The only subassemblies I did not assemble was the transmission
(by Ed Stack), the differential cluster, basic wiring, glass, and
chassis parts. Everything else I had apart. And it doesn't make
any smog (well, CO$_2$), and my insurance is \$320 a year, in San
Francisco -- hell I know people who pay that {\it per month}.

This is definitely my most fun toy.\endblob

\bye
