table of contents:
This is really the second Rewire. The first one was released in NYC back in 2002 as an extra long newsletter. The original intent remains the same, to spread the word about kommercial free music and DIY culture.
The first rewire newsletter was distributed at parties in NYC and San Fran, and was mainly directed towards the crews in those cities. This zine is for party crews and soundsystems too, but hopefully it reaches newcomers to DIY tekno and the hardcore lifestyle.
The internet is a valuable tool for the underground to keep in touch. Now it's available everywhere from coffee joints to libraries, so no one has a reason to be out of the loop anymore. The websites listed in this zine are active sites with event info, free music, networks to other crews worldwide, and message boards where you can connect with other mutants.
Check out this CD of 100% DIY music!
This isn't fluffy, cuddly, turn off your brain music. This is wake the fuck up and do something music. As you newbies listen to the music, read thru the zine, and check web links, you'll understand we don't have anything to do with the commercial rave scene.
Some time ago, a "rave" was an all night electronic music party where you could let loose and dance. Now there's a lot of other meanings attatched to this four letter word. Now it's associated with a consumerist subculture that revolves around fashion, bad drugs, glowsticks, and expensive tickets. We don't call our parties raves, and we don't call ourselves ravers.
We build upon the groundwork laid down by crews who've been bringin' it since the 80's. We believe if you're going to be hardcore about your music, you have to be hardcore about your politix and your lifestyle too. We're contstantly mutating to adjust to changing times and envirnments. We live in trucks, squats, and warehouses no one wants. We eat and fuel our machinery with society's waste. We converge to create autonomous zones where people can be freed from our culture of fear and oppression.
You should really come hang out sometime............
AUDIO MAYHEM- click on the TRACK for the download::
1. jackclang: DEUCEOFF - - Havocsound -=- havocsound.cjb.net - Clang brings it again with another quick blow to the dome! This one might go on vinyl.
2 nic-fit: FORGE - - Havocsound - Old school jam featuring sounds from a modular synth that has been known to burst into flames, literally. E
3. nevermind: WARMIND - - Apocalypse -=- apocalypse-recordings.com - Raunchy speedcore from hell! The US speedcore authorities (apocalypse) well represented with this one.
4. sour: GOODSHOT - - Havocsound - Nothing fancy, just a classic 4x4 banger to rock out to; very loudly.
5. heartworm: IVE GOT SEVERE PROBLEMS BUT THATS AIGHT - - 5lowershop -=- 5lowershop.org - Slum Records -=- slum.org - This track with mash your head up with style.
6. meatsock: SNOWPLOWED TAKEOVER - - grep-fu.net - Check out these ill breaks! The best new stuff I've come accross in a good while, check his stite for iradio and trax.
7. automaton: NOTHINGS EVER ON SALE AT KETA-MART - - Renegade Virus -=- renegadevirus.org - A nice slice of a liveset from europe.
8. jasonblackkat: 0023 - - Blackkat -=- blackkat.org - Better known for his hard tekno, and now, cats and secret agents.
9. msg: SCHLITZED - - Havocsound - Three years from the first recording, MSG strikes again. This set was recored onto a cassettee then fed into soundforge from a boombox; just like first time.
I used to hate techno. As a matter of fact, I despised it. Everything from that happy, twinkly, constant-repetitive bullshit to the pacifier sucking, glow-in-the-dark idiots who are mostly under 18, spending daddy's money, going out and getting STD's and frying their serotonin receptors. I was so appalled by this [Seattle] techno scene, that I not only refused to go to a rave and see for myself, I wouldn't touch a techno CD with a 10-foot pole. (Unless I got to smash it). In a way you can't blame me, because all the techno I was exposed to at this point was mainstream, stupid American pop culture. Fuck being open minded. I had to draw the line somewhere. Unless I'm trying to 
torture myself, there is no way I'll ever intentionally surround myself with a bunch of mindless consumerist freaks who don't appear to give a damn about anything but blue double stacks, bad beats, and glow-sticks. I would prefer to party with people who have something to say, other than, "Where's the $3 water?" Seattle started to get old, so I got the hell out, via an Alaskan fish barge. That's where I met my now best friend, Sour. When we got onto the topic of music, he said he not only listens to techno, but he makes it: I wanted to barf. How could this smart, crusty, awesome new friend listen to shit music? " Have you ever heard of hardcore tekno?" he asked me. I didn't know that ‘hardcore' and techno had anything in common. Obviously, my answer was, "No." Sick of the same old shit, and sick of bitching, I put his tape in my Walkman, and pressed PLAY. That's when reality struck. For the first time, I was actually jamming out to some electronic music, and wishing only that it would be louder. It was strangely reminiscent a style that I could identify with. Punk rock. Lots of fast, harsh noises and heavy bass. I felt pretty dumb for previously being such a hater and not bothering to give an entire class of music a measly fighting chance. I decided that it's not very fair to trash talk something that I wasn't familiar with. Unless a person simply can't stand any artificial noise, and listens to nothing except bongos and didgeridoos, it is wrong to hate on electronic music. If I put my actions with a different genera of music, it would be comparable to saying that all rock-n-roll sucks, because the first and last I heard of it was RUSH. I would like to share what I learned as a newcomer to the hardcore tekno scene. A lot of what I am about to relay may or may not be considered "preaching to the choir." My motive is to strike interest in folks who don't know of hardcore. I am going to report my observances of this tekno scene in a somewhat generalized manner... Hardcore tekno or, "free tekno," is not only a genre of music, it is a lifestyle. For the most part, it is anti-commercial, anti-authority, and autonomous. If it is truly hardcore, the parties are free of charge. If there is money involved, it is for charitable purposes. TEKNO spelled with a K instead of a C seems to be an attempt at separation from mainstream styles. 
Tekno producers, DJs, and enthusiasts are part of a worldwide network that identifies with the number 23. There is more to 23 than I can talk about at this time. There is a separate article in this zine addressing 23. Anyhow, if you see 23 on a flyer, or shirt, or weird bus, it most likely is in reference to hardcore, or Michael Jordan. Tekno is very complicated to make. True tekno punks live for mother-parties called teknivals. A TEKNIVAL is an illegal festival in the middle of nowhere. The object is to find a remote spot for as many people as possible to convoy to, and set up as many sound systems as possible, and play music as loud as possible for as long as possible. NOTHING is as good as a teknival!!! After Alaska, I traveled to Europe with my boyfriend, where I experienced three of these festivals. The first would've been the best, but armies of German cops shut it down after a whole 12 hours. The second, and most successful, in East Germany, lasted about 5 days. Two cops and an interpreter showed up and told the 27 sound systems that they may proceed only if they all pointed their speakers in the same direction. (Supposedly, there were complaints over 10 kilometers away!) The last and largest festival, Czechtek, was massive and great, yet somewhat disappointing, only because it ended up being pretty commercialized, and very dirty. In other words, there were just as many bars as identical records, not to mention litter and shit everywhere. Oh well, it was still great to stand in front of gigantic walls of speakers in the middle of nowhere. Europe has dozens of tekinvals! North America has two! That's right, two festivals. The one in the US is called MUTANT FEST. I have not had the pleasure of experiencing this one yet, but I can't wait. The other teknival is in Canada, near Ontario. Actually, there is a third festival in the works for the New York area this summer. You can read more about these parties in this zine. Basically, 2005 will be the best year yet for Western tekno. The moral of my story is that if you're going to talk shit, then be able to back it up. Also, tekno rocks, and if you like politics, travel, beats, and freaks, maybe you should step out of your bubble, and try something new.
~JAMIE~
****Why Dumpster?****
In General, people work because they have to meet their needs. But if you meet your needs for free, or cheap, you can work less. Food is probably your biggest need, next to water. Clean water is so easy to come by in the western world, we shit in it, so finding water shouldn't be a problem.
Food costs money. A single bag of groceries can run you anywhere from 15 to 30 dollars. Long ago we hunted and gathered our food, then we started farming. This was literally reaping what you sowed; working for your needs. Nowadays, we work for little green pieces of paper, that we can trade for food. Somewhere, someone is farming it, but that doesn't concern us. As long as your grocer keeps the food on the shelves, life goes on.
Yep, food is a big business. Everyone needs it. But like most things, there's a way to get it for free. For one reason or another, a large percentage of the food in stores ends up in the trash. Maybe it was spoiled when it arrived at the store, maybe some of it was damaged, or maybe it's "expired." Most people want things to be shiny and new. Just like on the commercial, or the picture in the circular ad. If it's not perfect, they can't sell it; and since giving stuff away doesn't make money, they throw it in the dumpster. And that's where the really good deals are!
Just think, in some countries people have nothing to eat. In the USA, there's enough good food in your average supermarket's trash to feed at least a couple families. Some places donate their food to a local food bank, but most don't. It just gets wasted and put into a landfill, where it will be sealed off from the earth and never completely decompose. So why not put some of that to good use? Or at least into a compost pile!
****Tricks Of The Trade****
Everyone has different methods of dumpstering, as it is truly an art. But if you follow a few guidelines, you can make sure your food is safer and better quality.
RECON-Scout out the supermarkets, food distribution warehouses, bakeries, and stores in your area. Find out where the dumpsters are, if they're locked up or not, and what time the places close. It's a good idea to do your recon missions during the day; prowling around at night will make you look suspicious and nobody likes talking to cops. Make a map and plan your route so you can hit the most dumpsters in one run.
TIMING-Most of the time food is thrown out at the end of the day, so it's best to dumpster food at night, after the stores are closed and the workers have gone home. Food gets pretty nasty after it sits in a dumpster all night and half the day. The idea is to get the goods as close as possible to the time they got thrown out. Also, trash picking is not the kind of activity that most upstanding citizens want to witness. The simple act of taking trash out of dumpsters is not illegal in most places. However, being on "private property" after a business is closed for the day, may be considered "trespassing." Cars are noisy, and hard to hide. Cops and storeowners tend to notice when a car drives around back, and it might sketch them out. If you travel on bikes in a small group, you can get in and out quietly. Cars are good when bikes aren't practical; like long distance dumpstering, or for big loads. Just take care not to attract too much attention.
SUPPLIES-Make sure to take a backpack and some plastic bags with you to put your goodies in, and a small flashlight so you can see what you're doing. It's handy to have a pocketknife too, so you can cut the bad parts off fruits and veggies right at the dumpster. Example: If there's a nick at the top of a perfectly good squash and you're not planning on eating that part anyway, cut it off right then and there.
TIPS-Use some common sense about what you're taking from the dumpster. Remember that it's in the trash for a reason. Smell things before you take them home. Sometimes supermarkets and restaurants pour bleach over the trash to "keep the bums out," or that perfectly good orange might have been sitting on a box of rotten shrimp for two weeks, you never know. Look closely for mold. Be careful around trash bags, especially if they're black. God forbid you open the bag from the women's shitter and the contents spill all over the place. Don't eat anything touching the side of the dumpster, and watch out from butcher trash. If a sealed package is bloated, it's rotten, don't even think about eating it. And don't forget to wash your food as soon as you get it home!
-You'll get the hang of it pretty quick. Most of the stuff you'll want are the items that get thrown away because they're blemished. Or maybe they've reached the "expiration date" but it's still good to eat, just not good to sell. Sometimes when new shipments come in, they throw the old stuff out, even if it‘s in good condition.
-Usually if there's something in a dumpster that's good to eat, you'll find it pretty quick. You might find some hidden goodies, but don't spend too much time digging around, there's plenty more dumpsters around with food in them.
-If you make a mess around a dumpster, clean it up! Put all the trash back in, or they'll put a lock on it. Don't steal shit from loading docks either. That'll definitely get you locked out, and under surveillance.
-DO NOT FUCK WITH COMPACTORS. People aren't checking for dumpster divers before they press the red button. Getting crushed in garbage is a bad way to die.
-If you do dumpster a large amount that you plan on eating, you can freeze it for storage. It's hit or miss, so you might want to take a little extra and save it just in case. But don't get too greedy! If you won't eat it, don't take it home. Let other people have a chance to get their free grub too.
****Food Banks****
Food banks are an excellent source for free food. You don't have to be on skid row to be eligible either, so don't feel guilty about taking handouts.
Most food banks are USDA supported. The government buys surplus crops from farmers to help the markets. If there's too much grain on the market, for example, the prices go down and the economy takes a hit. So, the government buys the excess, distributes some of it to the needy, and destroys the rest. There are rumors of caves full of butter, and giant mounds of mashed potato flakes on the ocean floor. Look it up, it's interesting stuff. If it's not USDA food at a distribution center, it's probably from local businesses that are getting rid of back stock or damaged goods. Use good judgment. If a food bank is in a very needy area and there doesn't appear to be enough to go around, don't go there. There's always someone hungrier than you are. But for the most part, most USDA food banks have more than enough food, and they'll hook you up.
Typically, you'll come away with a box or bag with something like-
****Summing Up****
If you and your housemates dumpster and hit up food banks a few times each week, you can eliminate most of your food costs. Try it out. Pretty soon you'll become an advanced cheapskate. You'll be thinking along the lines of, "What do I want? Where do they make it, and where's their dumpster?"
****Personal Experience****
>>>Coolest things I've ever seen in a dumspter>>>
The list goes on and on....
>>>Worst things I've ever seen in a dumpster>>>
*In the end, nothing is as bad as finding human shit* *That's what I get for dumpstering the hood* *Rich people have the best trash*
Here's a link to our (now out-of-date) Brooklyn dumpster guide. Follow the route and maybe you'll score!
Masses unassuming
Sound waves in light speed movement
Infused with sonic boom
Judgment comes
On your ear drum
Nomadic audio tribe
Traveling the sky's horizon
Our demise is to trod on
People of the positively charged electron
Metatron waits at the gate
Zion is not a place
It's the vibe we create
In the valley of dry bones
We dance on Babylon's ruins
Primordial humans
We pass through
The spiral vortex
Of physical existence
Substance worthless
Without Purpose
Focus the minds eye
On your crystalline
Body of light
Night is the path
Of astral travel
Leave out of this
Shallow grave
Bass saves twenty-three
DD
the number of the underground from psychic tv to the spiral tribe. a prime number divisible only by itself and one, it only takes one weak link to blow off or blow up your crew. the 23! is a self-propagating tag affixed to underground crews across the globe, a signal for anti-establishment, for destroying the oppressive system piece by piece and offering new ways of living and being, the mistletoe of temporary autonomous zones, anarchic and effective. a number not to be mis-used for it is truly the psychic number and the dead speak through the 23! giving it power and ingenuity at which we may only marvel so search for thee 23! and you will find the doorways you need. create thee 23! and you will tap the underground network. nicfit
G Dubbya Loves Your Art Car
At Burning Man,
No girls drive the big art cars.
Punk rockers patrol the borders
With night vision and GPS.
Visual stimulation without the audio-
How is that holistic?
But for 38,000 people, its an e-carnival
Of theme camps and dust storms.
Cops in SUVs own the playa at night.
Mexican laborers dredge out the shitters by day.
I hear Billy saying,
“I don’t know if that was sleep
or the slow absorption of shock.”
And psi-trance is as hard as it gets.
There's a flaw
in every major world religion.
Buddhism- apathy.
Christianity- lack of imagination.
Neopaganism- excruciatingly bad taste in clothes.
Drugs put it all in perspective.
#######################
>>Working Adventures<<<
-----------------------------------
When I was a youngin, I got my first job (washing dishes in a cafeteria), and I tried hard to grasp the concept of work. I assumed that when I got promoted out of the scullery, or if I could be a cook somewhere else, life would get a lot easier. It didn't. About 20 resteraunt jobs later, I gave up the food bizznuss. Then I started going in all directions for work. No matter what it was; body piercing, bike messaging, campaign promotions, or demolition jobs....work still sucked. I came to the conclusion that people that held down the same job for their whole life had to be crazy or in the perfect situation. So I set parameters for myself to keep work intersting. From then on jobs had to be seasonal or temporary, they had to pay well enough that I could coast longer periods of time without working, and they had to have a risk factor to keep me on my toes.
The "working adventure" in this will be about my alaska commercial fishing experience, which was in the winter of 2003 and 2004. In the summer of 2003, I decided to go on tour and move from NYC to San Francisco. Bushwick had lost its charm and I was tired of paying an arm and a leg to live in the hood. Work's hard to come by there, and the police were coming down hard on our events. Besides, a lot of my friends had made the exodus to the west coast so I wanted to see what the hype was about.
That summer was the first Canadian teknival, and we came up with a bus fron NYC and represented in full force. It was a nice festival, and it got everyone in party-mode for the summer. We came back to NYC for a bit, then it was off to Oregon to Mutantfest, then down to San Fran to 5lowershop. I cris-crossed the country a few times, but I mainly stayed in San Francisco for most of the fall, trying to look for people that had been fishing in Alaska.
I'd worked on a few boats here and there; longliners mostly, but that didn't mean shit to the elite Bering Sea fisherman, and I knew it. Also around that time, the discovery channel saturated TV with a bunch of "extreme alaska" bullshit that ecouraged thousands of crazy idiots to ship off to alaska to hunt for deckhand positions. It was winter, and I (rightly) assumed that the alleutian islands were cold, so I didn't want to risk going up there and not finding work. So I hired on to Icicle Seafoods, based out of Seattle, to work on a proccessing barge.
I passed the drug test, and since I didn't have any violent felonies; they hired me straight away and flew me to Dutch Harbor, AK on January 11, 2004. The plane was small, the runway was short and dead ended into water, and everyone was certain we'd explode on impact. I was assigned to the Bering Star. It was a huge blue barge that used to be a US military morgue ship in the Korean War.
They gave us laundry bags containing sheets, a pillow, and a blanket. The office randomly assigned me to a room. The bedrooms were 6'x8' and had four coffin like bunks and four small lockers. My three room mates were fat and disguisting, and when one guy was standing on the floor, the rest of us would have to sit on our bunks, because the "floor" was about the size of a place mat.
Since 80% of the people hired to work were new, they explained to us the positions and schedules, and we signed up for the jobs we wanted to. Of course this didn't mean shit, and in the end, they put you where they wanted you. I got the position of "pitcher." If you're a pitcher, you jump down into the holds of the fishing boats and unload product into a "brailer" (a net/bag combonation) that is craned from the hold and on to the proccessing deck. The whole operation was extremely low-tek. I guess its more economical to hire cheap labor than buy productive machinery.
As long as there's boats coming in, everyone works 16 hour days with no days off, until the fish runs out. If you're sick, you still work. If you're hurt, you still work. The minute you can't work, you're off the boat. There were lots of people on crutches or with eyepatches, barely able to stand or breathe properly, still on the proccessing lines for 16 hours a day.
It took a couple weeks for the season to start, so everyone was restless on the boat. Food was served in the galley, buffet style, at 12am and 12pm, and 6am and 6pm. To pass the time, most people ate alot, read books, watched movies (we had a TV room), excercised (there was a small gym too), or went to the ship supply for porno and booze.
Finally the first boat full of crabs docked to us and prepared to be off-loaded. Everyone was anxious to get started and had no idea what their job was or how to do it. Me and the other three pitchers boarded the first boat and jumped into a hold containing 500,000 pounds of live, pinching, Opilio snow crabs. It was like a war zone. Crab season was only 10 days, and each boatload was worth millions, so they rush the shit outta you to offload them so they can go back out. Each brailer held 1500 pounds of crab, and it takes around 15 minutes to fill one. You reach down to the crabs you're standing on, grab an armfull, and toss them into the brailer. The object is to dig straight to the hull; because crabs are easier to grab from your sides than bending completely over for your entire shift. Crab pitchers were only supposed to do eight hours in the hold, and then go to the proccessing deck for the other eight; cause crab pitching beats the shit outta you. My proccess lead was such a bitch to me, I opted to work straight 16's in the hold with the crabs. No one objected because the pitchers were getting injured and shipped home left and right.
At the end of crab season, my fingers and palms were slick with blood. Somehow, even thru heavy duty gloves and liners, the hard crabshells took the skin almost completely off. More than 1/4 of the entire crew was on a plane home, and only 4 of 12 pitchers were left. We got a two day break, and then cod season started.
Cod is a big ugly fish with a whisker on it's chin. When you fish for cod, you catch a lot of pollock too, so Fish & Game requires fisherman to retain a certain amount of pollock to reduce unnessassery fish kill. If you read the ingredients to fishsticks, imitation crab meat, or and cheap proccessed fish product; most likely its made of cod or pollock. Don't eat pollock. We'd leave that shit laying around for days while seagulls pecked their eyeballs out, cause they're worthless. When we got around to it, we'd freeze the half rotten pollock and sell that too.
Finally, I got to work with tools. I got a "Gaff" (big hook) and a piece of plywood.
Pitching cod was a tiring proccess. The Bering Sea is cold in the first place, and the boats have chillers in them to keep fish fresh longer. During crab season, the boats drained their holds of icey water, then we jumped in to throw crab. Draining a hold full of fish is more complicated. The drain is usually located at the bottom of the hold, and there's about 300,000-500,000 pounds of fish between you and the drain. Fish holds have a lot of guts, slime, and blood in addition to water; so its kinda soupy. Even if you successfully moved fish off the drain, the bloody chum goes down slow.
To combat this problem, we used plywood. We threw a piece of plywood down in the hold and surfed on it, while gaffing fish one by one in the eye, and throwing them into the brailer. This time the brailers weighed around 2000-2500 pounds full, and you were expected to fill at least 10 brailers an hour. Most of the time you lost your plywood square somewhere in the muck, and your rubber boots filled with icey guts and water. By the time your shift was over, you couldn't feel your legs. This went on for months. Day in and day out. Eventually you get used to this kind of shit and its "just another day at the office."
After a while I realized I wasn't getting winded anymore, and I only wore a hoodie, instead of multiple layers. I got used to working 16-18 hours on four hours of drunken sleep, and I couldn't smell the fish funk unless I really tried. If you deprive someone of sleep, isolate them in the freezing cold, and force them to work; they eventually reach a state of working delerium.
I couldn't quit for a few reasons. I signed a contract. If I breeched that contract, I owed the company for my flight up, the food I ate, and the bunk I slept on. Not only that, but the airlines are in cahoots with the fishing companies on these islands, so they'll be sure to overcharge you for your trip to Seattle. If you get fired at sea, and not at port, you pay for the 10-dollar-a-minute helicopter ride to the nearest shore, which probably isn't anywhere near an airpot. Also, I met my girlfriend there, and we didn't want to breech two contracts at once and be double fucked over. So we encouraged each other to keep on going. We saw a lot of people get put out on iced over islands at 1:30 am with no place to go, and we didn't want to be in that situation.
Cod season ended in late april, and we made preperations to go further out to sea, up into Bristol Bay for Herring season. By this time the crew was only 65 people, compared to the 200-something we started with. Herring is small enough to be pumped, so my job as a pitcher was over (thank god). So they moved me to the next hardest job, the freezer. Alaska is cold, chilled holds in alaska are cold too, but freezers in alaska are REALLY cold. The barge had four freezers that could hold 300,000 pounds each, and freeze them in eight hours. Herring season was another derby fishery that only lasts nine days, so it was cut-throat just like crab. Our boat sucked it from another, and dumped it into the proccessing deck where it was sorted and put into pans to be frozen; then loaded onto carts and sent to the freezer.
My job was to run into a huge freezer with a 2000 pound cart of fresh herring, and run out with a cart of frozen herring, then send it to be boxed up. Two guys to a cart, six guys to a crew. A lot of people broke their hands by holding on to the carts while they clipped the side of the freezer door. Each team of two got a cart to run every 5 minutes. It was pretty dangerous and tiring. The guy I was paired with was old and slow, so I did most of the work. We got a cart every five minutes. I endured this shit for 9 days or so, then it was time to go home.
Most of the time me and Jamie were on the boat, she operated the crane. For herring season she threw 50 pound boxes all day long. When they told us it was finally over, you couldn't wipe the smile off our faces.
The took us in groups of four on the skiff, and ferried us almost to land. We had to storm the beaches like D-day, and tread water for 10-15 yards so the skiff wouldn't strike ground. It was like a final fuck you from Icicle Seafoods. Some small planes landed and took us to another small plane, that eventually too us to anchoride, and then Seattle.
When we got back to the real world, it took a while to adjust. I think I actually had culture shock. We barely slept three or four hours a night, and were anxious to smoke and drink as much as possible. A year later, we're back to normal.
Looking back, it was a good experience that made me appreciate simple freedoms. I'd like to work in the fishing industry again, but I'm going back to longlining if I do. Fuck proccessing. Over fishing can destroy entire ecosystems, and alaska has been raped year after year for a long time now. If you eat fish, try to figure out where it comes from. Eat as much farmed fish as possible, and don't eat Alaskan crab, because they're almost fished out.
The whole affair pissed me off for a lot of reasons, but especially because I'd worked on boats before. I had more commercial fishing experience than most of the higher ups, but they thought they knew it all and treated everyone like idiots.
I did a little math (using average minimum production results)....and taking into consideration that I pitched with three other guys, and worked in the freezer with one other; I devided my results equally. (I worked with some lazy fuckers so I know I'm giving them the benifit of the doubt) In the end, I threw 24,000 pounds of crab per shift during crab season. Hooked and threw 90,000 pounds of fish per shift during cod/pollock season. And carted around 192,000 pounds of herring per shift over a bumpy floor on rough water for herring season. That's a lot of dead fish. I was just one guy, in one contract, on one boat; in a sea of boats and commercial fishing operations. Surely it can't last too much longer, huh?
Don't do it unless you're ready to get your ass kicked! The money is totally not worth it in the end. There's plenty of other ways to make a buck. I was warned over and over not to do it, but I've got a thick skull so I went anyways. I used the cash to tour Europe for the summer, which was long overdue for me. And in the end, I met my girlfriend Jamie there, so that makes it all worth it. But other than that it was five months of death, drinking, slime, sickness, sleep deb, and rage. Sign up today at icicleseafoods.com!!!
Do something good with your summer! Don't waste your time with bullshit moneypit festivals like Burning Scam. When I lived in NYC I got so fucking sick of people talking about burning man this, burning man that. I also heard it from the perspective of people from the anti commerical side of spectrum, so I knew it was a bunch of drummed up bullshit. But one summer, I found myself on a good friend's bus that was going to burning man, then back to the east coast. So I figured I'd go see what it was all about and sneak in with no harm done to me or my wallet.
This was the summer of 2003, and everyone that was on the bus hadn't been in a few years. They told me it would be a breeze to sneak in, and there was only a plastic construction site fence to keep the trash from blowing out into the desert. So me and my friends started walking in from the roadside and then out of nowhere, there were trucks surrounding us. Some had "Black Rock City Boarder Patrol" logos, some were burning man ranger trucks, and some were unmarked. So a bunch of wankers got really pissed off and made us go to the front gate and pay.
Tickets online a few months in advance were 120 or so bucks. But on the first day, at the gate, they were already 250. No way in hell was I gonna pay for burning scam. A few people I was with payed, some successfully snuck in, but me and another guy spare changed the line for 5 hours in the hot desert sun. Luckilly, another friend of mine popped in and out of the gate to help us. He can stick a knife all the way up his nose (because of a freak childhood accident), and his supernatural feats kept the money rolling in. I guess since these people were prepared to drop 100s of dollars for burning man, they didn't mind giving me a buck, or fifty cents. Finally me and my buddy had 500 bucks. Pretty good for five hours of spanging. We bought tickets from a scalper, and when we went thru the gates, a dust storm was starting so they never checked our tickets. We were so pissed that we didn't bumrush the gates during a dust storm sooner.
To make a long story short, it was super dumb. I don't care what kinda music you like, there was no good music there. Especially no tekno. Everyone rented a big dumb RV, and bought tons of shit from walmart to rough it on the "playa" for the week. And the "art cars". Hah. That place was an energy consumtion party. People driving around like assholes all night and all day in circles with their blinky, fire shootin', mad max wannabie hooptie rides. There were no politics, profound statements, nothing like that. And a whole bunch of cops on ATVs driving around with their lights off so they can spy on the place. Jack Clang made an interesting comment. "This is the perfect facist society, everyone is totally controlled and being watched and they're happy with it." It's not even a drug frenzy anymore. The only weed I smelled came from my joint. And everyone looked at me like I was crazy for smoking in the open. If you took a strip of bars from a college town, dropped it in the desert, and dressed everyone like jack asses; you'd get a burning man.
Anyways. I just picked on burning man cause everyone knows about it, and a lot of people make the journy from their hometowns to go. That's the extent of your average american's festival experience. In Europe there's HUGE autonomous FREE festivals with TONS of soundsystems and installations, called TEKNIVALS. We don't have that many cool underground things here in consumerland. But we do have a few options.
Mutant Fest - In my opinion, mutantfest is the best festival the North American continent has to offer. It's been going on for 8 tears now.
I can’t believe I’m here.
I’m sitting at a table in a conference room in the Cornhusker Hotel, putting together welcome packs for the business seminar I’ve been assigned to, and it is 7:20 a.m. The seminar is called “A Creative Daycamp for Business Professionals”, and the keynote address is titled, “To Infinity and Beyond! How the Best and Brightest Leaders Achieve Tremendous Results by NOT Thinking like The Crowd”. Sounds like a bad dream doesn’t it? Nothing as dramatic as a night mare, just a bad dream, the kind that cements you squarely into one of a million unbelievably boring and mundane work situations, and then subjects you to a water-torture-like succession of the same, excruciatingly trivial tasks being performed over and over…time becomes distended and you realize you’re smiling and saying something so shockingly ridiculous and stupid that it almost wakes you up… but it’s all too real. I am a temp. and not just any temp- a temp for the most infamous of all staffing agencies…a temp for this place called…..errrr…. Manpower. For reasons that remain vague and inexplicable to me, I find myself unable to comfortably say the word Manpower out loud. There’s just something quintessentially smirk-inspiring and cringe-worthy about it. Tara from the creativity Daycamp has no trouble with it however. “Are you from MANPOWER???” she calls out in a loud voice from across the lobby. The well-coiffed front desk clerk looks down, his tweezed brows raised slightly, the way you do when you want to appear kind yet inaccessible to someone less-fortunate than yourself. “Yes,” I said, and submitted to my hellish fate.
Tara is about my age. She’s pulling a small, brisk-looking suitcase, and is wearing a gray tshirt and swishy black track pants. We walk through across the ground floor until we reach the elevators. She tells me what I’ll be doing, which is basically to sign in participants as they arrive and fill out orders if they want to buy any books afterwards. Tara looks very soft: she has round cheeks in a full face, and big eyes, but her voice reminds me of a series of horrendous fenderbenders all involving frenetic cheerleaders at the wheel. When she talks, her sentences lurch sharply upwards and into one another with metallic rising intonations, bringing to mind squealing tell-tale brakes and the momentous ensuing crrrack, starchy striped and pleated skirts fluttering with the impact, white gumsoled Schechers shoes stomping at the ground in pissy imperiousness, the slightly desperate rah rah rahs degenerating into accusations.
We are met on the third floor by Frank. Frank is dressed in a crisp brown suit and has spiky brown hair like a football coach, but the overly thin lips of a german ophthalmologist. He looks Tara over and says with a small smile, “Nice outfit”. She doesn’t hear- or ignores him- she’s already wheeling briskly down the hall to inspect the conference rooms. Frank notices me. “Helllloooo,” he says, introducing himself and holding out his hand. I take it, smiling wanly. Frank, I can already tell, is overly responsive to my, err, feminine charms- charms I would much rather had escaped his notice.
Frannie arrives- the final component of the seminar trio. What do you call these people? Seminarians? Seminaristas? Public Speakers? Later I will find out they are really just called salespeople. As usual, it’s all about money. Frannie is tall and commanding, with funky glasses and artfully disheveled hair that’s almost completely silver, although she’s still young. She moves very confidently as she surveys the room, ignoring me completely, wearing the exact same outfit as Tara. This time, Frank makes no comment. Frannie reminds me of a star basketball player, the kind who looks down on-
but secretly lusts after- vapid, nubile cheerleaders like Tara, and hates herself for it later.
People start arriving. They all look sleepy, none of them look creative, and a few of them even look more than a little mad. Maybe they’ve been coerced into coming here. I would have volunteered for it, if I’d been them – anything’s got to be better than that little cubicle down at the Dept. of Roads, doesn’t it? You could take an extra hour for lunch afterwards, tell your boss the presentations ran over…But that probably never entered anyone’s mind. People start work here at 8a.m. and in fact, like starting at 8a.m, and wouldn’t dream of doing it any other way. Isn’t that appalling? The work ethic in this part of the country is shocking.
Time drags…. I signed people in for half an hour and have been reading the newspaper and calling Larry, the hotel concierge, on the house phone ever since. But only because I’m forced to- the ice water ran out, lunches to be ordered, still no water, lunches re-ordered, water still not here, lunch count amended again… I’m sure Larry hates me. He’s undoubtedly been trying to watch pornos on the top secret, self-customized pay-per-view connection he siphoned off of the hotel account, somewhere in the catacomb-like basement where his “supply closet” is located- and I’ve been disrupting him all morning. I want to whisper an apologetic “sorry dude!” every time he arrives at the door, but I’d hate to jeopardize that secret pay-per-view connection. Frannie’s speaking in the room I’ve been assigned to, and she’s not having much luck eliciting any kind of response. I suppose most of these people are disgruntled that there are no donuts, only coffee and tea. Not that they need any donuts- they’re all fat. Not just fat but complacently fat as only Americans can be.
I see Frank sidling over and try to appear fantastically interested in reading my newspaper. He doesn’t care. “You know,” he begins in a low tone, taking a seat next to me, resting one ankle on his knee and smiling conspiratorially, “my grandfather was from Lincoln and ever since I was a little boy and heard his stories, I’ve wanted to come here, too.” His tone is just soft enough for me to presume some special significance to the intimacy of our conversation. Instead it inspires a sense of malice that I conceal with a wide-eyed look of wonderment.
“Really?” I say. “Wow. You and Hitler!”
“What?” Frank says vaguely, taking his eyes off his expensive loafers.
“Hitler,” I repeat cheerfully. “He was fascinated with Lincoln. He studied blueprints of the Capitol and everything- its quite Gothic inside. And it’s got secret underground passageways leading to all kinds of different places downtown. This is the center of the country, you know. He was planning to make it his base of operations once he took over America. Isn’t that horrifying?” I shuddered. It was all true, if urban legend was correct. I’d heard it said for years. Not that anyone’s proud of such a fact.
Frank is silent for a moment. I imagine all his boyhood ideals of Lincoln, Nebraska forever tainted and marred. But then I realize he’s probably already forgotten what I’ve just said. What does it take to penetrate the slimy veneer of artificiality that’s all around me? Franny is finishing her spiel and announces Frank, who runs up to the front as if he’s dashing out into a roaring, packed gymnasium instead of a 12 foot stretch of pastel colored carpet in a conference room. Franny beams at him and runs to the back herself, where she instantly loses her smile and pins her eyes on Frank with a severe expression. Frank’s obviously the pinnacle of this whole damn thing. Hopefully that means this’ll be over soon?
Frank looks over the room with a theatrical pause. Then, smiling conspiratorially, he begins, in a low, knowing voice, “You know, my grandfather was from Lincoln, Nebraska, and ever since I was a little boy and heard his stories, I’ve always wanted to come here, too.” Oh my god! Launching into his sales pitch, Frank works the room, getting a stubborn silence most of the time. Maybe everyone’s as disenchanted with this thing as I am? But afterwards, a surprising number of people buy books while others wander around the display tables indecisively, unable to decide on a purchase. These books are crap! I want to whisper. You don’t need this shit!
Finally, finally, it’s over and I’m released out into the world, where my eyes have to readjust to the natural sunlight. Stuck inside all morning while it was such a beautiful day out- how depressing!
And that wasn’t even close to being the worst of my temp jobs.
READY, SET, EAT! 
