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?

[Dan 10things]

King Wenclas said:

I invite everyone, Dan in particular, to read the new issue of Poets & Writers.

I fucking hate poetry and that style of writing, you might as well ask me to stab an icepick into my eyes. I'd just tell you about how horribly boring and pretentious the writers were and complain about how you goaded me into suffering through their tripe. Similarly to reading some of the ULA writers. The world of most zinesters and zine writing is quite distant from those that normally contribute to Lit Mags. And while Lit Mag contributors and ULA types might aspire to getting their name and words splashed across the mainstream press, I think it's a false assumption to think many zinesters fall into that category.

[Dan 10things]

King Wenclas said:

p.s. here's a hint about the new issue. Try to find the word "zine" anyplace. There's even an article on how to make a zine, without calling it a zine.

Funny, this was my exact complaint with the ULA's manifesto and declarations when it started. No mention of zines whatsoever. I've always thought the type of writer that was in the ULA was more like a McSweeney's-litmag reject than a zinester. I still have a hard time grasping how someone could pine away hoping someone else would publish their writing when they could do it them self.

[King Wenclas]

Uh, Dan, Poets & Writers magazine is not a litmag. It doesn't include poetry. What it does do is monitor the literary scene, across the spectrum, for poets and writers. You can see it clearly visible at just about every bookstore or magazine stand. They have wide circulation.
Re the ULA.
It's curious that you get just about everything wrong about it. The first big article about the ULA, in 2001, a big feature in the Village Voice, clearly has the phrase "A Zine Team. . . ." in the subtitle. Check it out. It's hard to miss.
The ULA catalogs have always mentioned zines all over the place.
As for myself-- let's see: In my last year in the outfit in January 2007, in addition to doing zine readings and shows, I and other ULAers had a zine table set up in New York City outside a skyscraper, got into a wrestling match with a security guard who threw me and the table off the sidewalk. Enough dedication for ya? A couple months later I was on a local radio show with other local zinesters in a show solely devoted to zines.
Fact is, I've demonstrated as much support for the zine movement as anyone-- and NO ONE worked harder to get word out to the public-at-large. Which makes your ongoing hostility curious.
It doesn't sounded like you've ever read ULA writers. In many ways they've been the antithesis to cutesy McSweeney's stuff (who of course were longtime enemies of ours). The writers Potter has published, or those in ULA house zines, are in the tradition of the best zine writing as exemplified by the likes of Doug Holland and Aaron Cometbus. Some of the writers' zine efforts go way back-- I'm thinking of Bill Blackolive and Jack Saunders, who were producing zines when you were riding tricycles.
Etc etc etc.
***********************
Why is the Poets & Writers issue important to zinesters?
It shows that the industry which makes money OFF of writers is moving on DIY.
DIY is against everything P&W stands for. (PW is a tool of MFA programs, which provide it the bulk of its funding.)
For them to get involved with DIY must mean there's an explosion of interest in DIY among writers; of alternative ways of being a writer.
HOW are zinesters to let these people know about the genuine article???
This is the key question.
Authentic DIY needs ways of announcing itself. Otherwise it'll be displaced and ignored.
Those who mischaracterize what I was doing with the ULA don't seem to realize that I had no interest in being published by conglomerates. On the contrary, I wanted to compete with them through getting free publicity-- which I did. We sent McSweeney's, for one (they've always been fake DIY) into panic mode, so that Dave Eggers himself was attacking us on Amazon. This is all documented.
Look-- I can't believe that most zinesters; Joe Biel, for instance; or Zine World; want to exist on a subsistence level.
Competing means making noise-- to let people know that we're here. To do anything less makes no sense at all.
One step is to join the list of DIYers at the Petition to PEN at
www.penpetition.blogspot.com
You'll find there some of the best writers in the underground, which means the best writers in America, PERIOD, many of them current or former zinesters.
Thanks.

[Dan 10things]

Yeah, sorry, I've never looked at Poets & Writers nor care. Similarly I don't know what Pen is that you're protesting. They aren't part of the zine world. Again, I think you and your ULA pals aspire towards goals that seem fairly different from most zinesters, it seems like you're looking for grants and getting published and covered in mainstream magazines. Good for you, go for it, but that's not exactly DIY publishing. I'd bet 99.9% of zinesters look at their writing/design/self-publishing as a hobby and I have a feeling the majority of ULAers look at writing as a job.

And Karl, there is a big difference between a writer from the Village Voice mentioning zines and what you guys wrote yourselves. You sent everyone on alt.zines a little manifesto/declaration when you started the ULA and it never mentioned zines or seemed to have anything to do with the zine community. I think you have always have a hard time communicating with other zinesters because you assume we all share priorities and beliefs. But I could give a fuck about most of the things you guys want to boycott and whine about, and my guess is they just aren't relative to most zinesters. Having Hendricks present them to people certainly doesn't help, it's so hard to understand what he's saying most of the time.

[Betty]

I swear Karl and Tom could be the same person by the way "they" speak for everyone and listen to none.

Dan 10things said:

Yeah, sorry, I've never looked at Poets & Writers nor care. Similarly I don't know what Pen is that you're protesting. They aren't part of the zine world. Again, I think you and your ULA pals aspire towards goals that seem fairly different from most zinesters, it seems like you're looking for grants and getting published and covered in mainstream magazines. Good for you, go for it, but that's not exactly DIY publishing. I'd bet 99.9% of zinesters look at their writing/design/self-publishing as a hobby and I have a feeling the majority of ULAers look at writing as a job.

And Karl, there is a big difference between a writer from the Village Voice mentioning zines and what you guys wrote yourselves. You sent everyone on alt.zines a little manifesto/declaration when you started the ULA and it never mentioned zines or seemed to have anything to do with the zine community. I think you have always have a hard time communicating with other zinesters because you assume we all share priorities and beliefs. But I could give a fuck about most of the things you guys want to boycott and whine about, and my guess is they just aren't relative to most zinesters. Having Hendricks present them to people certainly doesn't help, it's so hard to understand what he's saying most of the time.

[King Wenclas]

??? A curious statement, Betty. Unlike Dan, I've never claimed here to speak for other zinesters, And I doubt Tom has. What we do is present ideas for the zine community to consider. I don't see anything wrong with that! Yes, at times we've spoken about and FOR the authentic DIY movement to the outside world. Someone has to!

[King Wenclas]

Like it or not, the world is changing. The outside world is more open than it's ever been to DIY. I prefer not to treat DIY selfishly that's all "mine," belonging only to myself and my buds. Or, "free speech belongs to everyone."
**********************
There are three ways of approaching the drastic changes that are happening.
1.) Treat as an opportunity.
2.) Treat as a warning.
3.) Ignore them.
I'll take these in reverse order.
3.) Zinedom in the 90's had an activist strain. The attitude today is to escape from reality. An extreme example of this is our friend Dan, who makes an ethos of not reading or knowing anything outside zines, then uses his very ignorance as his badge to speak about things like mainstream literature about which, again, he claims to read or know nothing.
If you say this is contradictory, I say, yes, I agree.
Others make zinedom appear like an extreme religious sect hiding inside a walled compound removed from the world; from the larger society.
I ask them: Is this your reality? Really? No TV, no radio, no electricity? No brave attempts to look through a heavily curtained window to see what's happening outside? (How they maintain this web site is beyond me.) The attitude is that the taint of "the world" is evil and must be avoided.
Are you also against protesting the nation's Imperialist wars? Of course not. But you're against speaking up IN YOUR OWN INTEREST, in your own realm of writing and self-publishing. It's a cop-out.
Either you're a teenager who can be excused the lazy frivolity, or you're a citizen of this country; participant in what's left of our shredded democracy.
************************************
In a monopolistic, tops-down society, publishing a zine, any zine, is a political act. It's a statement of free speech.
***********************************
Is ignoring the world a choice? How far will you retreat? Post offices are closing around the country. What if tomorrow the government says, "Sorry. No more snail mail." What then?
Well, I guess we'll still have our immediate friends to distro to, and can reduce zine circulation accordingly, as some folks here seem to want.
For a thinking adult, #3 isn't much of a choice.
(To be continued.)

[Tom Hendricks]

When you say "who cares' do you speak for your generation?
There has been talk that the new generation is the Z generation.
Z for zombie or ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ - sleeping Z's.

How about it zinesters? Is this the Z generation?

[Dan 10things]

Eh, you don't need to lie about me just because I don't share your beliefs Karl. Again and again you guys seem to try to speak for the zine community and tell us what we should believe and be outraged about. Yet it seems like these campaigns have little traction amongst zinesters. Ever wonder why? I'm just giving you some possible reasons.

I don't care that much about the world of corporate literature that you seem to be so desperately be trying to get attention from. And it seems from the lack of support you're finding here, that maybe I'm not alone in not caring about getting attention from the corporate media. I read McSweeny's and like it, and I'd never heard of PEN and Poets & Writers Magazine. I don't think any of the three have anything to do with publishing a zine. I have tons of outrage for things I see in this world doing harm, but a fucking magazine is not going to be in top one thousand.

[Tom Hendricks]

Warren Piece said:

These guys need a manifesto. I've read and re-read their posts and, while I understand what it is they're objecting to, I'm still not sure what SOLUTIONS they're proposing. Government monies allocated for zine writers? All corporate magazines and art to be shut down by Cultural Czar Hendricks? Free lunch for guys who write shitty short fiction? WHAT?!!


Lay it out for me, motherfuckers. And do it quick, 'cause you're boring everyone with this pedantic soapbox shit.

And don't provide a link to your website or some letter you sent the local newspaper 13 years ago. Just lay it on me.

And make it easy so I don't have to get out of bed or do anything.

[Tom Hendricks]

Zacery Nova said:

Or..."Z for Zac".

"Sleeping z's = our generation" indeed, how rude!

Not true then huh?

[tim scannell]

don't get your nickers in a twist...

you think 'zinery' is serious stuff???


hahahahahaha...GROW UP!! it's a hobby...an avocation (and that's its
ONLY manifest[OH}...................(ation)...).
tim

Tom Hendricks said:

Zacery Nova said:

Or..."Z for Zac".

"Sleeping z's = our generation" indeed, how rude!

Not true then huh?