Somehow, issues of my long-dormant post-collegiate zine Uberhoot continue to embarrass me. Example? Issue 3 was recently offered up as a specimen of amateur bookmaking techniques in a classroom setting, in which an acutely lowbrow page was then read aloud by 70 year old letterpress artists (for this, I blame Uberhoot's co-creator).

Issues of the defunct zine were also recently perused by friends who yanked them from a dusty bookshelf on a trip to California. Picture four people drinking whiskey in horrified silence, reading A Charlie Brown Christmas in the 90's, a peice that may be the pinnacle of all that is twisted and wrong about zines just in a general sense (although I have been quoting it now for 8 years, as I tend to do with things my brother says).

Issues three through five are, to my chagrin, strangely available. If you happened to know me in the late 1990s you probably have one shoved in with your old college papers, in that Absolut Vodka box in your attic. Mercifully however, there remain two highly elusive volumes that will never see the light of day: Volume 1, and Microhoot.

Volume 1: A Fool's Conference

Volume 1 is passingly discussed, but not pictured, on the cover art retrospective page. It details my vitriol at a certain egomaniacal male in whom I was interested in the year 1996, set awkwardly within a larger workplace metaphor of conference tchotchkes like lanyards and name badges. Not one of my more lucid content moments. If I ever see you with a copy, I will shoot you on sight.

Microhoot

One copy exists, and no more. It had no print run, due to its odd size and painful extremes of non sequitur idiot humor, personified by my choice of cover imagery:

Its table of contents alone tells you all you need to know, which is that no one should read it, ever:

I like the AndyO Blog

AndyO was my first manager at a certain Northwestern conglorporation back in the halcyon days of 2000. He loves Star Wars and Rush, the two things I hate most in this world, and he jumps at the chance to discuss either at length, using white board illustrations to diagram X-wing fighters or Neil Peart's drum kit. He also loves movie director biographies, airplanes, extraterrestrial phenomena, computers, screenwriting, drumming, psycho-social theory, and Diet Mountain Dew.

I like his blog.

It's not like years ago

You and I, we know that your music collection desperately needs an influx of random bands you’ve never heard of, to make you feel the winds of bygone hipsterdom in your hair. Because —let's face it— you’re still playing Automatic for the People in your Jetta, and cranking up the volume on Nightswimming, almost kind of a joke song, but a song that you nonetheless always felt kind of wistful about.
 
Well, you're in luck. For the reasonable price of nothing whatsoever, the Mundane Sounds new artist samplers three and four can Febreeze the stale winds of 90's arena rock from your car upholstery with a few scenester-approved downloads. But act fast... after a time, the links, appropriately, disappear, because as any kid will tell you, coolness is a moving target.

First do no harm

While I am still not off the subject of NN#3 due to a general lack of creativity, please see the following photographic evidence of other things I've kept alive...

Send mail to mail@tiny-dog.com.