“Why don’t you write a zine about it?” is a common dig zine writer’s will get from the punks, a subculture that seems to continually widen an embarrassed distance from it’s intellectual and socially conscious roots. You don’t have to embed yourself too deeply in to notice the majority of it becoming banal, collapsing under the weight of conformity, close-mindedness and nostalgia. For a scene so quick to label folks who aren’t punks as “normies”, it strikes me funny so many punks are so hung-up on maintaining a narrow status quo of what punk rock is. I’m not sure how relevant this is to a column for The Monarch Review, a website that hasn’t been known to wave punk banners, but it is important to what my column is about, zines. In its D.I.Y spirit, punk has long been involved in the spread of zines, perhaps too much, you might even say they appropriated zines as their own at times. But if it weren’t for punk, zines wouldn’t be where they are today. We have punk to thank for that. Punk had lots to do with the distribution and legitimizing of zines as print lost ground and the fetishization of the medium when so many writers made the jump to blogging. Of course, not all of what zines are today is positive. Zines have suffered greatly from the posi-punk rhetoric of the early 00’s. Challenging, controversial and even engaging writing became marginalized by endless scenester garbage about making out, the color of their bike, lists of crushes and cutesy horseshit like that. The voices crying in the wilderness were replaced by voices…crying. The scenesterism that kept it going through lean years also did a lot of damage to it. Imaginations were dulled, the breadth of topics became narrow and common. People too weird or independent to give a fuck about being properly published were replaced by people who cared more about being part of a scene than making art. Make A Zine In An Hour workshops started happening and it seemed the highest good was simply to make a zine, not a good zine, just a zine. Then again, maybe a lot of these folks I’m bitching about don’t even consider themselves punks, but simply share some of the culture’s D.I.Y ideals. What I’m getting at is punk’s relationship with zine culture has been complicated.

And here I am, a longtime zine reader and writer and someone who’s spent a lot of time doing punk rock. I also just wrote a book and finished a book tour. Most of my contacts were people I knew through punk. Punks set up readings for me, I read with punks (who did zines). Punks laughed at stupid jokes I made during my reading, got drunk with me and gave me their couch to sleep on. Punks also scoffed at me, talked down to me and made assumptions about me throughout my trip, mostly for the way I look and what I chose to write my book about (reporting on a rather uncool subculture). But that’s not what I want to address. I want to talk about Vancouver, yes, I said all that to bring up Vancouver because my experience in that town was one where punk ideals seemed to be put into play in a really positive way. And, yes, zines. I want to talk about zines I think you should seek out and read because, after all, that’s what this column is all about. And this one in particular is about zines in Vancouver.

The one contact I had in Vancouver was a good sort named Nate who I knew through…punk rock. I reviewed his band Poor Form and introduced myself when he passed through town. We got to talking and I told him I was writing a book. He’d bug me for a copy when his band came through town and when it was finally out, I sold him one. A few months down the road and I’m bugging him for a reading in Vancouver. He was stoked to do one. It was the first stop on my tour and would remain my favorite.

He found a couple of friends to read from their zines and did a bunch of flyering and it was on. Vancouver’s small, tightly-knit but inclusive scene of radicals, punks and queers left me a little envious. Sure, the grass is always greener…I know, I know, but really…I don’t think Seattle could draw thirty-plus people to a backyard to hear nerds read aloud. I talked a lot about zines and independent press the whole time I was there. Literature wasn’t marginalized by band fetishisim and they weren’t embarrassed at their intellect or feel it clashed with getting drunk, rocking out or having a good time, nor did they seem to lack the courage of their convictions as U.S punks do.

I read with two other writers that I’m stoked to have the opportunity to plug here. The first to read was Kahla, a veteran zinemaker (I realized I had once ordered a copy of her zine, ALF House, years ago). She read from The Secret Life of an Apprentice Electrician, a zine about learning to be an electrician from the point-of-view of a radical queer woman. She starts out describing her motivations, wanting to learn so she could give the skills away for free to her friends. This is nothing less than awesome, especially since she’s dedicating four years of her life to learn the trade. This isn’t the only way her views differ from the norm and her outlook leads to some fascinating insights, like how she relates to her acupuncturist, who tells her that acupuncture is very similar, a way to control the flow of energy in the body. Then she moves into some of the frustrations of the job. For instance, she’s immediately put into high-voltage danger situations and has to stand up to a foreman nicknamed “The Cowboy” for his poor safety record. She also talks about the sexism she experiences on the job, but one of the ways she approaches it is, again, by describing a conversation she had with a friend who was equally frustrated with the way men behave. Kahla seems to have a knack for taking conversations and turning them into enlightening and thought-provoking pieces. There’s also lots of science; for instance, how some people are more conductive than others. Kahla learns this when she gets a shock from a wet wooden cable reel through a gloved hand while measuring cable lengths in the rain. However, it didn’t shock her male co-werker. Want to know why? Read the zine. She’s also pretty witty and funny, it made me snicker as she described her appreciation for sexy electrician terms: “putting your hand right in the box”, “sticking your fingers in the pipehole”, “lubing up for a hardwire pull”.  The Secret Life of an Apprentice Electrician ties all these things together into a well-rounded zine, leaving me ruminating on things she said long after reading.

I also read with Alicia, who charmingly enough, was struggling to format the zine she’d written so she could lay it out and make copies in time for the reading. It was an all day process, her friends were ready to pull their hair out helping her, but in punk fashion, they got it done an hour or so before the reading. So I had the privilege of hearing her read from Four Eyes, Two Wheels, a zine about riding a motorbike from Vancouver to New Orleans. It’s a travelogue that also gets at her inner dialogue, thoughts and observations she makes along the way. Between tales of breaking down in the rain and drinking with eccentric Midwestern motel owners and taking comfort in the knowing charm of just-add-water friends (I’ll let her explain) she met along the way, she shares deep insights on life, friendship and identity. Life-affirming and highly recommended, but expect itchy feet for travel. You’ve been warned.

Legs, another one of my hosts, puts out Then the Cops Showed Up. On the bus ride home, I read issue #2 of this zine of a rare breed. It’s a regular zine covering the Vancouver punk scene, the kind made to hand out at shows. While it’s mostly relevant to people from that area, zines like this are few and far between these days. I’m glad that someone is still stoked enough to cover and recruit their friends to report on their local scene in this way. However, Legs’ friends refuse to simply review bands and shows and the like, but also review road trips, small towns to the north and whatever they damn well please.

I also hit up Vancouver’s Danielle Patrick (whose zine, Optogram, I reviewed in my last column) for new work. She sent me a bundle of stuff made by her and some by her husband. Funeral is her writing about her grandmother’s funeral and her husband wrote one about the ennui of werking in a factory over the summer called, Short Fuse. Not every zine can be about driving a motorcycle across the country, sometimes people just need to relate things they are going through, to examine them. That’s what you get with both of these and they’re worth a look.
Contact Info, if you’re looking to find out more:

The Secret Life of an Apprentice Electrician: Kahla, kahla@riseup.net

Four Eyes Two Wheels: contact info seems to be something she left out in her rush to print. However, Kahla and Legs seem to know her well and could probably help you out.

Then the Cops Showed Up: TITSCU Zine c/o Piano Forte, 627 East Cordova St., Vancouver, B.C, Coast Salish Territories, V6A 1M1, Canada

Funeral: tharnia@hotmail.com

Short Fuse: rodoftheflies@yahoo.com