How to Become the Media
Philadelphia Weekly, July 11, 2001
One of my first jobs out of college—certainly the first job I cared about—was on the editorial staff of the Philly Weekly. I was hired to edit the arts and entertainment listings, which I more or less neglected as I tried to get as much of my writing into the paper each week as I could. This essay was the first chance I got to write about something that mattered to me personally. I went to the Underground Publishing Conference in Bowling Green, Ohio, where I attended workshops and lectures and met writers, artists, and librarians who were also activists, and who made their own media and took control of its distribution. The experience made a huge impression on me, and the things I learned that weekend serve me to this day.
You’ve never really understood what’s up with the anarchist kid, the West Philly squatters and the punks who hang on South Street with their dogs. Then again, when you left for the second annual Underground Publishing Conference (UPC), you didn’t know it would be so political.
Jason Kucsma of Become the Media Inc., tells you even he wasn’t sure what this year’s event would bring. He does say, “The Zine Yearbook allows us to see what the underground has printed—and a lot of it is great, and a lot is not so great.” Pack your bags for Bowling Green, Ohio. You’ll decide for yourself what’s great and what isn’t.
The Midwest turns out to be very flat, a parched alien landscape. Bowling Green, described as a college town, is sure enough that, and not much else. A friendly girl in a coffee shop (the coffee shop) says the town boasts 18,000 people during the school year, but only half that when the students go home. Note the irony in coming all the way to this strange little burg to discover underground America.
Saturday afternoon at the conference is back-to-back sessions. Slither into a crammed classroom during a discussion on the Books Through Bars collective of Philadelphia. A floppy-haired boy leaps out of his chair so you and your giant backpack have a place to sit. Through the course of the weekend, discover that all the people here are this gentle, and all the sessions are this packed.
Moving from session to session, notice how well organized this gathering is. You’ve seen people behave much worse at professional conferences, the kind sponsored by über-corporations that own the White House. The UPC didn’t even charge a registration fee.
Watch people mill around outside the classroom. Kids with half an inch of encrusted grime on their bare feet sleep on plastic chairs. A boy with long hair and a tee-shirt that reads ANARCHY IS OUR WAY OF LIFE sits on his legs and reads. Girls with shaved heads and arms full of tattoos greet each other warmly. They haven’t seen each other since—oh my God, since Seattle!
Meet a bearded hiker guy with a microphone who runs an anarchist talk show when he’s not working on an organic farm. Except for a former Black Panther and the gregarious librarian from the Utne Reader, nobody seems older than 25. And even though a zine just informed you that fashion is “fash-ism,” make a mental note that retro Sauconys look really cute with pink socks. You are a consumer pig, caught up in the capitalist machine. Hope no one notices.
Try to keep track of all the projects you learn about. It’s not easy. Two librarians from Salt Lake City’s main library have started one of the few zine archives in the country. Jim Munroe, whose first novel was published by William Morrow and Co., shares the more organic pleasures of touring with his second book on a shoestring budget. A woman from the Independent Media Center of Chicago insists, “If you’ve had something political happen to you and you want to talk about it, you’re a journalist.” Fret a bit about job security. Three trendy girls from Brown assure everyone it’s easy to produce a radio show as impressive as theirs; decide they’re being generous.
Head to the lovely old theater on Main Street that night for two hours of indie films. Scott Beibin of West Philly’s Lost Film Collective has brought the Lost Film Festival, and he’s clearly delighted. He says “yay!” a lot and wants to know if you’re having fun. You are.
Fall in love with The Manipulators, a two-minute animated film by Andrew Jeffrey Wright and Clare Rojas from Philadelphia’s Space 1026 gallery. In the film, an issue of Marie Claire opens to reveal Sharpie drawings that march across the most egregious ads and fashion spreads. Big snakes appear, eat ladies’ handbags, then poop. It seems to encapsulate the weekend’s overall sentiment: If you don’t like the mainstream, you can reject it. You can make it your own.
Wright explains, “One of the purposes [of the film] was simply to add imagery and give it a different meaning—to heighten the ridiculousness that is already there.” He’s not sure what to make of the radical kids either: “I’m not an anarchist. I’m an I-don’t-knowist.”
Wonder how so many cool people lived in your hometown without your realizing it. Later, ask Scott Beibin about it, who tells you: “West Philly is like the East Bay of the East Coast. It’s a mishmash of anarcho/socialist/green political groups and religious organizations far off the Wonder bread barometer.” He mentions that on his recent U.S. festival tour, people all over the country asked about his neighborhood and used the word McPenntrification. Worry about how the rest of the country perceives your city.
But back in Bowling Green, where ATMs are few, you run out of cash by Sunday afternoon. Go from table to table in the vendor room like a beggar and leave with a backpack full of beautiful zines, newspapers and CDs anyway. Discover that the UPCers’ anti-capitalist rhetoric is more than photocopied words on a page. Wonder if these people have looked at a newsstand lately, if they know how precious their ideas are. Feel sad about saying goodbye.
Next to you on the plane home a skinny woman from West Virginia describes, between sips of beer, the excruciating tortures she’d like to inflict on various headline-making criminals. It’s her argument against capital punishment, which is “too easy.”
Shudder and page through your bounty of zines, most of which declare prisons anti-human. Be glad you spent the weekend in Bowling Green. Be glad the gentle anarchists exist. Be glad you have a new word for what you are: An I-don’t-knowist. This way, you’re always becoming.