back EPISODE #1, FEBRUARY 2000 (Bend has only ever sent out one mass emailing—the first and last—to persons unknown... of course this was an attempt at finding like-minded readers. A mistake? Response was mixed, mostly confused, sometimes angry, one woman was even frightened. Here...—Andy Jenkins) GENERAL RESPONSES Hi. I don't know where you got my e-mail address but you sent me an e-mail on your book. I looked at your webpage, and it was really interesting, but at first I had no idea what it was, and truthfully I was kinda freaked out. I went to the three rooms page first, and had no idea what I was looking at. May I suggest that you have an introductory write-up on your first page? I think that it may help people who are checking out the page out, and not scare any of your potential buyers away. Good luck with your book! —Katherine Filipic Sirs, Why is this mail directed to me ? This seems to have nothing to do with me. —Ken Friedman, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Leadership & Strategic Design Department of Knowledge Management Norwegian School of Management Andy, is that you? I have been secretly following your career for several years now and I must say I am pleased with your productivity. What's happening? I always try to find you at [the] ASR [skateboarding tradeshow] but it's usually "he was here yesterday..." or "he is an intelligent man and avoids this sham completely". I talked to Megan at the ASR in Feb and she gave me an update. I noticed a lot of BMX related e mail addresses on your list—is "Bikerboo8" Biker Sherlock from the X games street luge event? Nice to hear from you —Scott Towne Dear Andy, "Head Factory" sets prominently on a shelf in my living room with other Mel Bend conversation pieces. You are my favorite artist, and I tell everyone so. Wonderful site. A Harold McGruther reference on the interweb (question mark/exclamation mark). My fifteen minutes are ticking… I'm a dreamer, too. I dream of being a better friend to old acquaintances, but life's last-minute-get-it-done-yesternever-fuck-it alarm clock always blasts me into the present. I like desert living, but it can be murder on your social life. —McGoo Thanks for the email...are you asking to send us something, we love new music. —John Osborne, "Indy Hour" I don't really understand what your page is about. Is it for a band or just for the hell of it? —Signed: GOD You should know, you made it. —Andy Oh I understand... I guess I just forgot making it in between the other seven days events. —Signed: GOD Nobody cares. —Andy Teal, ateal@ea.com Whoa. —DKjump4130 Andy, you are out there baby. —Mike Daily Looks cool even though I dont know what it is. Hey, did you get the new Tokion? Looks ok? —Adam Thanks for the input about dream interpreatations. I've had some surreal one's myself that I purposely chose not to "look at". Enjoy the wet sky. —Mike Nelson The website looks rad. I was psyched to find that link to all the Wrench Pilots... I'll have to spend some time downloading now. Take it easy. —Anthony Moreschi Yer head shur is pretty. I am not sure what the elusive quality is, but whenever I see something you have done, it makes me feel privileged, As though I am witnessing something special. Solong fern ow. —Joe Sorren Keep these coming. My fiance, Amy ( who works for New Issues Press) said that your stuff was really good and she'd like to see more. Me too. I wanted to ask you something, check out the attached. I got it from a Homeboy Magazine and all I can remember that it was from something called "Fools Tour '88". Anyway, when I was 19, I got the thing tattoed on my arm ( Hardcore, dude!). Do you know the story behind it? I just wondered. Later, —Joe-L P.S. I think I might have asked you this before, but whatever happened to Lew? Do you ever hear from him? Stayed up 'til am reading your site... thanks. —Rob Abeyta Do you like apples?. Two teenage girls, best of friends, were walking home from school oneday, down the long hot dirt road, when they decided to take a rest under the big apple tree located just metres from the side of the road. Girl one sat down, leaning her back against the base of the tree, and placed her school bag just to the left of her. Girl two sat down close to girl one and rest her head on the shoulder of her best friend. The breeze was blowing, they were now in the shade, and both girls talked effortlessly of they're day at school. The girls had been best friends for seven years and had become quite close, sleeping at each others houses, riding their bikes together, like any normal girls would. Girl two, with her head rested on the others shoulder, ran her hand along the high side of girl one's leg, Her friend liked this and seemed to feel relaxed and enjoyed it. The girls both turned to each other, looking into each others eyes and gave that strange look like they were about to have they're first kiss. An apple fell from above them and struck girl two on the left shoulder. Best friends shouldn't kiss. —Chris Searl, Australia I enjoyed San Pedro. The little boxes kept me busy for nearly 20 minutes. Randy Janson is joining me on the book project. His art, my words. God help us all. Enjoy your holidays. I will be eating pnut butter cups and crickets' —Phil Esbenshade Andy, the site looks so fucking good. Inspiring to say the least, brother... —Lardog I just pissed away a couple of hours reading all the little squares. Turns out Monika spent a couple of hours reading your site too. Damn son, you're a productivity buster. We talked about our favorites at home (mine was the guy at the phone booth to the two guys with the malt liquors, but it's been a bullshit week and I felt close to that one). —Kevin Stout So Ravel died back in '97, huh? I've just spent about an hour looking at everything... heck, who needs a Seattle art walk on the first Thursday of the month when you've got bendpress.com? —gOrk I checked out a few of those on the San Pedros... who's the author? I'm at work and can't spend too much time here lookin' but it seems really good... I just saw the name there. Read them all. Nice. I like the style. I used to have a very similar thing on my site. I think you're doin' good stuff, my man. Good, good stuff. I don't know that magazine Level??? Something I should look into? You really doing a calendar on Gator? —adam@chapelle-tni.com This is nice.  I'm going to read some more stories.  —Margaret Hehman-Smith I couldn't think of a better way to spend a few hours today than peeking into your mind. Thanks! Site looks great and glad to see you working on your own stuff. Gotta vote. —Kristine Brogno The Pedro & Glimpses stuff is great. I really like that town. In fact, I was in Pedro the other day. We went to the LB aquarium in the rain and I thought I'd drive over and check out a big rail I thought I remembered in Navy Housing where I grew up. (Up the street from Mike Buff's house.) The whole place was deserted and chained up. It would be an awesome place to sneak into and do some filming. All these perfectly usable houses and apartments slowly rotting away. Kind of surreal. I don't know why I bothered to tell you that, but I did. No response needed. —Bill Bryant I think when you dream of naked people, someone is about to die. At least that's what I've been told. My mom dreamed that she was in a town square of sorts, and for some unforseen, humiliating reason, she was forced to climb a flag pole naked. (Unlike me, she doesn't drink to excess and do this sort of stunt on a regular basis.) The next morning her mom was dead. I guess her mom used to have these naked dreams before when she was alive. There was a lot of death in her family, so I imagine there was a lot of dreams of naked people. When I was a teenager, I used to be afraid to get up in the morning, I figured everyone I knew would be dead, what with all of my dreams and all. Anyway, awesome stuff. Are you going to grow it and publish a full-sized batch? Sign me up if you do. By the way, I think you mailed this thing to an old SNAFU mailing list or something. Not that I care, but you/they might. I was also honored that my name (yippee) and such a grand description made it into a footnote in something you've done. I think now I can finally be free to do that safari in Kenya or produce that screenplay I've been writing forever. —Bill Bryant P.S. (Semper Fi) It WAS the Marines, right? —Andy Yes. 4 long, stupid years. It was like redneck college. I majored in drinking and getting in trouble. While you guys were forwarding creative, constructive careers in the eighties, I was running around dressed like a tree in search of v.d. and hangovers. —Bill Bryant That's some cool shit. I like the writing. There's a story in the sleep section that reminded me of my childhood. My younger brother and I went to the same middle school. There was a girl there that had down syndrome. She fell in love with my brother and would follow him around everyday. She wanted to be close to him so she created an invisible locker in the wall next to his. Every day she would go to her invisible locker and get her invisible lunch and inviolable books. One day my brother decided to break her heart. He stole her invisible books right in front of her. She ran down the hall after him but he was quicker than her. —Cleon Peterson Andy, have you ever read any Brokouski shorts? Charles is his first name. He was a drunk from LA. He just died but wrote good novels, short stories and poetry. His best novel is "Ham on Rye." A good compilation of his short stories is "Women." I think I misspelled his name. If you like good, easy to read stuff, he's one of the best. I think he's published by blackbird press. —Cleon Peterson RESPONSE CONCERNING DIRT 8 & ETC. I think it would be great to see it. So what if ESPN bought it out or whatever. In reality, that is the dream of many start up businesses. It would be cool to see the finial issue —Nate in the 262 Been checking the "Head Factory" pages during my lunch-hour on a crisp sunny birmingham afternoon. Nostalgia. Chris Day / Pete Augustin / Ceppie Maes / Dyno race suits / ahhhhhh. Resurect [Dirt] #8. I own 2 copies of Dirt. How not to win at fights (?) [and] My life as a Dork. (both neatly bagged) Now I'm grinding. —Lee B. I'm very interested to see the unpublished content from the lest issue of Dirt. It's ironic to see this on your site since just this weekend I was going back through the "Mr.T" issue. Mr. T is certainly one of the great staples of American Culture. I'd be very interested to see what ESPN killed off. We're working on issue 50, so I've been going through some old files and just came across a picture of you, Daily, Spike and Tremaine at a contest a while back. Are you still working on a Spike book? It's definitely wild to see articles like "Being Spike Jonze" in places like Newsweek after growing up on the east coast and still associating him with Rockville BMX. It's impressive to say the least. Later, Jared (Ride Magazine) As an own of a test copy of Dirt #8 (Nils passed it to me years ago whilst cleaning out his office at Sub Pop), I say unearth the motherfucker. It was/is the best issue of Dirt and yelled backwards through time to the days of the best magazine ever created: HOMEBOY. Dig it up, —Roy C. I say give the masses what they didn't know they wanted. —Paul Hastings (Sakebomb) The Bend site is sweet. Chalk up a yes vote for issue 8 of Dirt—hey, is the submission deadline passed? —Ian Verchere back