Posts tagged: magazine

Wow, Wired Magazine just really hurt my feelings. Genuinely. I’ve been an enthusiastic supporter of their magazine from day one. I have every single issue from their very first three years on my magazine shelves. I remember how excited I was when they first came out, covering cool hacker counterculture with fresh artistic sensibilities. And now they would reach out just to be really petty and cheap and nasty to Blue Blood? That’s really not cool at all. What? $6.66 was too much of a micropayment? I would have gladly comped anyone from Wired, partly in the hopes of getting a press mention, but mostly just out of respect. Actually, come to think of it, we’ve comped quite a few people on the staff of Wired over the years, many times at their own request. But, I guess I’m just a chump. This is what I get?

(click to enlarge)

I realize it’s just kind of a bottom of the site blog section designed for negativity, so it’s not like it really counts, but it still seems really unnecessary. Partly, if you stretch a 180 pixel sample thumb image 167% and make it all blurry, yeah it starts to look kind of crappy. I know the folks over there are more talented and tech-savvy than that.

Normally, I’d like to write something a little more structured, and little more focused, but I’m actually kind of hurt.

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Many years ago, I lived near a Tower Records with an amazing selection. This was after I stopped getting my music for free from air promotions for being a radio DJ and before I started getting my music for free from publicists for being a journalist. It was also after I was broke and living in a punk rock group house and before I stopped giving a fuck about most of it.

I knew these two guys who went by the telling monikers of Psycho and Xylo. Psycho had a job as a clerk at Tower. One of his responsibilities was to check people’s bags while they were browsing. Now Psycho’s dad was some ridiculously high-ranking mucky-muck in the military, so Psycho could come off as sort of responsible. Xylo was less convincing, but he knew me. I had striped hair and liked to wear my underwear in public, but I came across as much more innocent and respectable. Probably because I was. But I was broke, coveted music, and was sweet on Xylo, so it didn’t take much to get me in on their heist.

The basic plan was actually kind of brilliant in its elegant simplicity. Psycho stockpiled a ton of CDs behind the counter where he worked. Xylo supplied me with a duffle bag, which I checked upon entering the store. I looked like someone who would shop at Tower, but I didn’t look like someone who would be part of a heist, because I normally wouldn’t have been. The idea was that I would check “my” bag, browse around the store while Psycho filled the duffle bag with CDs, and then pick up “my” duffle bag and leave. Now the plan got a little bit more complicated when everyone …

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‘Shy,’ ‘proper,’ ‘politically correct,’ ‘distinguished’ are just not the words used to describe this man. In fact, most people quite often would go with, ‘vulgar,’ ‘uncouth,’ ‘improper’ and a ‘highly charged ball of beer fueled sexual energy.’ I mean, we’re talking about a guy, whose nickname is “Sketchy.” Speaking of which, he also happens to be the only person I know who’s named ‘Racci.’ Never could a person be more appropriately named.

I met him approximately fourteen years ago when I went to go cover an old band of his from Atlanta doing a show in Cocoa Beach, Florida when I was running a fanzine out of Tampa. It was a weird venue, and honestly, the most I can remember of that night was they wouldn’t turn off the smoke machine and it made for horrible photos. We were introduced at that show, but didn’t really pass more than a few words.

A few weeks later, one of my friends, who was super into him at the time, asked me to go with her to see his band up in Atlanta, GA. I figured I’d get some better live photos than the previous shots to go with my review. I ended up being pretty much a third wheel and went out to the stairwell to drink some beer alone when my friend left the hotel leaving Racci and me on the stairway enjoying conversation. That was our very first discussion and the beginning of a very hilariously awesome friendship. All over some girl, some beer and some conversations at a Hampton Inn. You ever have snapshots of your memories? This stairwell with two people and a case of beer, is one …

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I only met Rozz Williams once.

A bunch of the Blue Blood crew were in Los Angeles, celebrating the release of Blue Blood #5. That was the first full color issue of the magazine. I’d used a comic book printer who did high quality art repro and had no problem printing depictions of nude women. Heck, they actually also printed tons of publications involving sexualized eviscerations of women. (Yes, we were doing cross-promo with Glenn Danzig’s extreme Verotik at the time and he used the same printer.)

But the printer had had some concerns about Blue Blood’s content. First, they were very concerned that there was bestiality. I was like, WTF? They are holding up printing my magazine because they are concerned about the bestiality? Where do they think I have bestiality? Then I realized that I had written a fiction piece about the drummer in a dykey industrial band who gets with a werewolf. I was proud of the story and it was illustrated with elegant photographs by the famous Gunter Blum. I was thrilled that someone as huge as Gunter Blum wanted to be in Blue Blood. I really didn’t want to remove the werewolf piece and I really wanted to get my magazine printed. So I call the printer ready to do battle.

It turned out that the werewolf erotic fiction was not the problem at all. NOFX had sent Blue Blood a blow-up sheep. At the time, NOFX was unpopular with a lot of music journalists because they didn’t like to do interviews. I thought sending me a Love Ewe (get it?) was a billion times cooler than any interview could be, so I thought they were totally cool. Forrest Black shot me using …

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If you are in Hotlanta right now, you’d best be getting ready to strap it on tonight. Blue Blood board members have already seen some shots of Kellie and Scar (and Pika) getting geared up to party. There is a new fetish magazine in the U.S. called Buckle and they are throwing a shindig tonight.

I haven’t seen the magazine yet, so I can’t swear that it is great, but they’ve got some good people on board. Buckle’s first ish featured photographer Steve Diet Goedde. Blue Blood has shared exhibit space with Steve more than once and, more importantly, he was the first person (besides Forrest Black of course) to tell me that I really needed to set up a membership site. Steve’s advice has been terrific. Buckle’s second issue featured photographer Kelly Lind and his co-conspirator makeup artist Alex LaMarsh who are responsible for a whole lot of sets on BlueBlood.com. We’re very excited that issue number three of Buckle feature’s Blue Blood’s own Scar 13 on the cover. Blue Blood hotties are covergirls. The shot is by photographer Brian Bothwell who model Kerry Scarey tells me got his first magazine credit ever when I chose an image he shot of her to print in Swag magazine.

So it seems like Buckle Magazine should be of interest to Blue Blood folks. My only reservation about it, aside of course from not having seen it yet, is that I’ve seen a lot of statements online to the effect that Buckle is going to blow Marquis and Skin Two out of the water in …

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