Zinesters are not the Beats generation, we are the Beat-UP generation

[Tom Hendricks]

Zinesters are the first generation that has had it's literature completely blocked from fair reviews in the mainstream media. There were the Beats writers in the 50's. Zinesters are the Beat-up writers. No other generation has had it's best contemporary writers block so completely and so unfairly.

The consolidation of the media has ruined mainstream publishing and the media that reviews it.
For some reason the media has given up all journalistic responsibility in refusing to cover zines and almost all better indie writing.

No coverage of the revolution in any art. It is just not literature.
No coverage of the new writers in new forms.
No coverage of the new writer advocacy groups and leaders such as King Wenclas, or ULA or Musea.
No coverage on why no coverage. The mainstream media can not be questioned on their almost total generational block of fair reviews for zines.

What do you think?

[Ciaran Power]

I dunno if I agree with what you're saying about zinesters being the greatest writers going, because I publish a zine and I fucking suck.

[tim scannell]

ziners are not the 'greatest writers going'
but they
ARE MORE INTELLECTUALLY FREE
THAN
MANY newspaper/mainstream magazine/'trade' fiction writers...

don't know whether you 'suck' or not
(send snail addy to [e-mail] for trades)
but do keep the crucial distinction mentioned
above in mind...

and another...FREE WILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(strive to hate socialism)

:):)
have a nice day!!

Ciaran Power said:

I dunno if I agree with what you're saying about zinesters being the greatest writers going, because I publish a zine and I fucking suck.

[Tom Hendricks]

This is a strange group of zinesters. Very ultra conservative. Not only do you not support advocates for more fairness for zinesters, but you take the time to oppose them.

[Dan 10things]

Tom Hendricks said:

This is a strange group of zinesters. Very ultra conservative.

Huh? What has anyone said that sounded ultra conservative?

[tim scannell]

you don't have the slightest notion...

read kropotkin...

then come back...after all
'growed-up'

Joe Biel said:

Tom Hendricks has even greater difficulty processing and analyzing these responses than Karl Wenclas does!

Anarchism does not function with representation democracy, Tom. It's a product of direct democracy. If our "advocates" are not saying what people think they should be saying, they are no longer "our" advocates.

I can't imagine that everyone here would fully embrace anarchist thought, but I certainly think the sentiment strikes a chord as far as why you are so poorly received.

[King Wenclas]

Yes, I'm online very seldom these days, so I have time only for quick responses.
Curious here is a failure to comprehend what's been said.
Again, I'm NOT in the ULA any longer. Their book distro/sales etc has NOTHING to do with me.
My strategy was working very well-- doing the things any endeavor would want to achieve.
Sorry, advertising-- however you achieve it-- is part of the game.
If we'd had books available when we were obtaining the publicity-- as I'd wanted-- things would have been different.
Yes, easy for me to say.
If I do another project, it will be without the ULA, and it will be done differently.
p.s. In 2003 we had our house zine at Towers around the country. When a big splash of publicity happened, the copies jumped off the shelves-- an example of how it was supposed to work. Of course, we needed to keep pushing the envelope a bit more.
Examples? Well, the entire history of rock n' roll and early punk, for one thing.
I know this-- you don't achieve success by hiding in a trailer, or refusing to go to the media capital of the universe, or by remembering slight long-ago grievances. Business isn't for the timid. If I were in a band, I'd want my manager promoting me in every possible way-- which is all I tried to do with zinesters.
A crime, apparently.
So be it.
Let's see where we're all at in five years. . . .

[King Wenclas]

Whoa-- a little hostility there. Sorry, dude, but we're all capitalists, unless living in a moneyless commune. It's the society we live in. From my point of view there are DIY capitalists, and then there are corporate Capitalists. (Which today usually means monopolists.) I embrace Jefferson's original Vision (not his reality) for this country, which was a nation of small farmers, craftmen, and shopkeepers. What happened is that Hamilton's vision won out. Too large a subject for this discussion.
Understand the context within which I use the term "success"-- to me not personal success (my actions prove I'm not after that), but, of course, success for the road I set out on, which was to create a valid alternative to mainstream lit. Not a wannabe alternative, but a real one. There's nothing wrong with wanting whatever project I or you are in to be successful. To think otherwsie is a bizarre kind of self-flagellation. I have nothing to feel guilty about. Do you???
This, by the way, brings up a problem with the ULA and how I got screwed. The approach I took in setting it up was very anarchist. Despite all the work I put into it, I owned nothing. Not a speck of it. I operated on the "word-is-bond" principle. Very UNcapitalist. Very unlike Dave Eggers as well. People wanted to see us as another McSweeney's, but we weren't like them at all. We truly were a cooperative. I had no more say than any other member. You see, I've been there, dude, putting my ideals into practice-- not just sitting on m y ass waiting for others to lead or accomplish.
It's a testament to the ULA's p.r. that people saw us as a monolith, when we were anything but. Our united front masked constant disagreement, which will occur in any group that operates as we did. And so, when the only "capitalist" in the group-- the book publisher-- decided to dictate, I was easily thrown overboard.
You see, warren, rthere are your feckless adolescent ideas drawn from your miseducation, and there's the real world.
Which doesn't mean the cooperative goal can't be reached, with safeguards-- but one can't wear blinders, as I did.

Warren Piece said:

You're not into capitalism, but you're obsessed with "success"....and sayings like "business isn't for the timid".

Why don't you admit you're just as much a capitalist as the rest of us? Stop lying to yourself and to the rest of us, Wenclas.

You're a cold-blooded, rotten, scumbag capitalist. I hate you. I hate your guts.

[King Wenclas]

(Now, whatever I said to Mr. Biel, it certainly wasn't to call him a "scumbag" etc, or tell him I hate his guts. It's good Mr. Biel has never dealt with Mr. Pierce, or he'd be shocked into a hospital visit!)
Curious about Mr. Biel, ya know. here he was harboring, unknown to myself, all this pent-up hostility to myself and what I was doing-- yet didn't hesitate to put blurbs from myself and another ULAer on Hermitt's book lauding her talent. Kind of a contradiction there, methinks.
In truth, hermitt is very talented-- inconsistent, but at times a tremendous writer. He and Microcosm deserve any and all attention possible.
I wish Biel well-- but if I were as sensitive as he is, the ULA wouldn't have lasted a week. Every step we took was accompanied by flurries of hatred from mainstream writers. It's the price of making change. We dared to expose corruption and this outraged people.
It comes down to a question of belief. The initial spark for me was the realization that zinedom included some very talented writers. I wanted to announce them to the world. It deserved to be announced to the world.
I'd wager there are some excellent writers in the scene even now. Where are they? Why has no one heard of them? Do they deserve to have their light hidden under a rock??
To say that we in the ULA sought to promote ourselves is a half-truth. We were promoting a name-- yes, a brand-- which served as a symbol for good zine writers. Our promotion of that brand was quite successful. Journalists are pack animals to the extent that after a point, publicity feeds on itself. We had big write-ups in lefty newspapers like Glasgow Herald and the Guardian; in hip cultural mags like ShoutNY and Cali's Soma; in "alternative" weeklies from Boston to Athens GA to Detroit to Seattle; and in college newspapers from Rhode Island to New Jersey. My last official act for the ULA was an interview with Philly's major NPR station. (I'd been on a college station a few months prior.)
It's absurd to say this isn't the kind of attention the movement needs. Absurd!
If you believe that your zine work has no lasting value, then step away. I'm not speaking to you or about you. Go hide under a blanket. If you wish to be left alone, like Mr. Biel, then fine. I'm not speaking to you either. But IF you believe, as Tom Hendricks believes, that your work has value, even lasting value, and that DIY art IS a legitimate part of our culture's history, then why dismiss someone who's made great noise about that history?
Our only crime has been believing too strongly, too intensely, too passionately, too madly, in the zine movement.

[tim scannell]

uh..., take out time for a
bowel movement...
you'll feel better.

King Wenclas said:

(Now, whatever I said to Mr. Biel, it certainly wasn't to call him a "scumbag" etc, or tell him I hate his guts. It's good Mr. Biel has never dealt with Mr. Pierce, or he'd be shocked into a hospital visit!)
Curious about Mr. Biel, ya know. here he was harboring, unknown to myself, all this pent-up hostility to myself and what I was doing-- yet didn't hesitate to put blurbs from myself and another ULAer on Hermitt's book lauding her talent. Kind of a contradiction there, methinks.
In truth, hermitt is very talented-- inconsistent, but at times a tremendous writer. He and Microcosm deserve any and all attention possible.
I wish Biel well-- but if I were as sensitive as he is, the ULA wouldn't have lasted a week. Every step we took was accompanied by flurries of hatred from mainstream writers. It's the price of making change. We dared to expose corruption and this outraged people.
It comes down to a question of belief. The initial spark for me was the realization that zinedom included some very talented writers. I wanted to announce them to the world. It deserved to be announced to the world.
I'd wager there are some excellent writers in the scene even now. Where are they? Why has no one heard of them? Do they deserve to have their light hidden under a rock??
To say that we in the ULA sought to promote ourselves is a half-truth. We were promoting a name-- yes, a brand-- which served as a symbol for good zine writers. Our promotion of that brand was quite successful. Journalists are pack animals to the extent that after a point, publicity feeds on itself. We had big write-ups in lefty newspapers like Glasgow Herald and the Guardian; in hip cultural mags like ShoutNY and Cali's Soma; in "alternative" weeklies from Boston to Athens GA to Detroit to Seattle; and in college newspapers from Rhode Island to New Jersey. My last official act for the ULA was an interview with Philly's major NPR station. (I'd been on a college station a few months prior.)
It's absurd to say this isn't the kind of attention the movement needs. Absurd!
If you believe that your zine work has no lasting value, then step away. I'm not speaking to you or about you. Go hide under a blanket. If you wish to be left alone, like Mr. Biel, then fine. I'm not speaking to you either. But IF you believe, as Tom Hendricks believes, that your work has value, even lasting value, and that DIY art IS a legitimate part of our culture's history, then why dismiss someone who's made great noise about that history?
Our only crime has been believing too strongly, too intensely, too passionately, too madly, in the zine movement.

[Bibliophiliac]

I don't understand the correlation between zinesters and a single generation. I've met zinesters in their sixties, in their teens, and I'm in my thirties. That's three generations of zinesters, right? Please explain.

I also disagree with, "No other generation has had it's best contemporary writers block so completely and so unfairly." There's still places where people get killed for voicing, writing, and printing dissent. As far as I know, I've got it pretty good here in the first world.

TOTALLY 100% AGREE with, "The consolidation of the media has ruined mainstream publishing and the media that reviews it." And my black heart is warmed by my favorite MUSEAism, "The mainstream media cannot be questioned." I say that all the time. :)

[tim scannell]

well...Liberalism has its cost...so?

Bibliophiliac said:

I don't understand the correlation between zinesters and a single generation. I've met zinesters in their sixties, in their teens, and I'm in my thirties. That's three generations of zinesters, right? Please explain.

I also disagree with, "No other generation has had it's best contemporary writers block so completely and so unfairly." There's still places where people get killed for voicing, writing, and printing dissent. As far as I know, I've got it pretty good here in the first world.

TOTALLY 100% AGREE with, "The consolidation of the media has ruined mainstream publishing and the media that reviews it." And my black heart is warmed by my favorite MUSEAism, "The mainstream media cannot be questioned." I say that all the time. :)

[kami]

christ but this is funny stuff!! twelve pages and counting about zines being blocked, democracy, capitalists etc etc... they are zines - you photocopy them, you send a few out, you give them to friends, you enjoy yrself... why should mainstream media cover zines anyway? does every zine out there have to cover other zines? does anyone give a shit anyway? i guess someone does, 12 pages and all that... but damn its funny to read... get a life, get laid, get drunk, get yrself a contract with a publisher if yre that worried about having yr voice heard .... and as for "its best contemporary writers" - are they writing zines? really? shit, name them for me so i can get their zines cos i aint seeing much of that out there yet! keep it coming tom, this is funnier than local community tv