back EPISODE #8, FEBRUARY 2001 (No Comment. Read. Send Bend an email or streetmail. and you to run the risk... words@bendpress.com or 22500 S. Vermont Ave, Torrance, CA 90502 USA) THE BOX Date: 1/15/01 Read your letter from P. Relic... made me think of times when I felt I had something to tell... something to give. I was one of a small cluster of friends who felt we had something to share about ten years ago... when a good friend moved north of LA we began writing letters, sending curious thoughts, curious things... much appreciation for music and culture. At that time, I was a college student studying without desire. On the weekends I would drive to my hometown, work for my parents business and earn enough money to support what was becoming a vinyl and CD fetish. It was then I sent the first package: a 12" album box (the only thing better than getting a letter in the mail is a package), assorted Big Black tapes, words, random packings and a few stickers on the outside. Over about three years the same damn package... more wear, more stickers, a little artwork and a whole lot of lot of love for the process, was sent between about 100,000 miles between four friends (possibly qualifying for frequent flyer points). I still have the box, in the archive section of a trunk (with vinyl I never listen to and a plethora of Freestylin' and Homeboy mags—staple of culture between the plains and mountains of Montana). I need to send a picture... I will. Your site always reminds me of a commonality that I feel I never see in the day-to-day any more. Thanks. Live Thrive and Jive... —Leif N NO Date: 1/15/01 Are you interested in new fiction? If so, please contact me for more information about "The Immortalists," an erotically charged, darkly hilarious novel about one man's quest to beat death. I am the author of "The Pied Piper," the book that blew up the liberal myth. —Richard Cummings POAM Date: 1/16/01 MAIMED-BRAIN DELIBERATIONS ON THE NATURE OF HOW THINGS WORK AND WHAT IS GOING ON Hey, let's make the most of it sail down streets to furry mask retreats obliterative behavior which is to say, inconspicuous I believe this is what Neitzsche meant by BEYOND GOOD & EVIL-- you just don't care anymore or you shouldn't care anymore and that's the rub that's the rub —Mike Daily, The Valley, California THE BEND TRANSLATION DEPARTMENT Date: 1/16/01 I would like to speak to someone about your language translation needs. Our company provides document translation services and we are very interested in partnering prospects with your company. Could you please refer me to the correct department or contact who would procure such services? Thank you so much for your time. —Amy French, CEO, Lexint, Inc., Castle Rock, Colorado KHAN Date: 1/17/01 Jenkins, Four or five years ago, Jim [a teacher] had a seventh grade Special Ed. kid, Khan. His family had recently moved to SF from Vietnam, and his parents didn't speak any English. Khan spoke very little himself. I met him once—couldn't get him to look me in the eye. He kept his head down. A shy smile crept across his face a couple of times. Khan used to show up for school in old school punk t-shirts—The Clash, Blondie, The Stooges. Jim would ask him about the bands, trying to get him to talk more, practice his English. Khan didn't know anything about the bands. His dad bought him the shirts at the Salvation Army. For Halloween that year, Khan showed up as Dracula. He looked more like Elvis with fangs. His cape, hair and sideburns were way more The King "Vegas Style" than Stoker's blood-loving hero. And he was wearing white shoes. Khan gave Jim a light blue dress shirt and a pair of socks for Christmas. The shirt came out of his dad's closet, and the socks were brand new. Jim still wears the shirt. I don't know what happened to the socks. Toward the end of the school year, Khan would break out crying at random times during the day. Pretty common stuff in a Special Ed. class, but Jim noticed he wasn't eating either and couldn't concentrate in class. It took a couple of weeks for Jim to find out what was going on. Turns out Khan was suffering from love. The unrequited kind. Some eighth grade girl was breaking his heart. A couple of weeks ago, two koala bears were stolen from the SF Zoo. Two fucking koala bears—missing! Turns out Khan had 'em. Turns out Khan was going to give one to his girlfriend. It was all about love. Beautiful, man, beautiful. —Kristine Brogno, San Francisco, California MY GOD Date: 1/18/01 I have a feeling I was never meant to send this message. As I went to click reply all hell broke lose and I was forced to watch as multiple windows were opened and closed automatically on my screen. Possibly the coincidental works of some higher being. Several seconds of playing solitare calmed me and I will once again start my message. I need desperatly to know where all your art has gone. I must once again fill/passify my need to see your drawings of blue naked men with angel wings and all that other hip swank you create. It really is great stuff and I keep some of it on my computer to remind me of this. Now considering my lack of spelling prowess I figure this letter is uterly unintelligable to you and of no more use than chicken scratches in the dust of an abandoned farm yard. Too bad eh? Hook me up with the location and I can leave you alone. —Signed: GOD Dear God, I've been good. My health is better these days... but of course, you know that. I am taking deep breaths and trying to be less self-obsessed. But then, you've heard. There are drawings/paintings on the Bend site. You've seen those? Those are it. All the rest are in about 25 or 30 black books I've whittled on for the past 15 years. Well, there are drawings on envelopes and found paper as well—the Post Consumer Guilt period. I still have the guilt... AND most of the drawings—but the series is complete. There are about 70 or 80 of them. ALL done while sitting at my computer between 1995 and '97 or so. Before the hot rod Power Macs and butt-loads of RAM. Or DSL, for that matter. Slow processing and loads of large files = lots of neurotic scribblings. I now have a G4 with 12,540 megs of RAM. And DSL. And thanks for asking. —Andy Date: 1/20/01 You are by far one of the most interesting people I have never met. I really dig your page and find my self anticipating further developments. I actually read some of your stuff (would have read more but reading off the computer wears me down) and it didn't seem to dull my senses like the usual zine clogging pre-teen pretention. Honest, that's what it is. I'd like to see a self-portrait of you one day. I figure any photograph would kinda break the myth for me. Somehow a sketched drawing would seem more true to what I figure Andy Jenkins is. Yeah and so you know, I'm not some sorta raveing lunatic ready to burn all my clothes and stalk you till the end of my days. I just think you are a stimulating individual... but then I don't know you really. Keep the myth I guess. —Signed: GOD TELL THEM Date: 1/20/01 Hello Andy, it has been quite some time since I last wrote. Returned from another wandering here and there. Strange night, I find myself in my parents house looking in boxes of my things that I have stored here. Been gone so long that it seems like they belong to someone else, like I'm at a yardsale and it is all stuff I would like to buy. Looking through my records, listening to them on a record player I got in 8th grade. I still have the first record that I ever owned, Van Halen 1. My older cousin bought it for me when I was 10 or 11, some heavy memories right there. A 3-day Greyhound bus ride brought me here. $8 in my pocket, a bag of bagels and A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME by Stephen Hawking came with me. Went out to the bar with some old friends and home didn't quite seem like home anymore, I felt like a stranger, detached. My friends have become "family men," "company men," "complacent men." How could I ever relate to them again after hitch-hiking to the Grand Canyon, sleeping in a car for days on end, being held up on the San Francisco BART and the lady in the bus seat just in front of me giving a guy a blowjob with his jacket over her head? I don't know, it just seems that the songs on the radio were written for someone else and the movies are made for someone else and television shows are from some other planet. At 28 I don't consider myself old, but I am still chasing this Peter Pan skateboarding dream around, and I am not quite sure were to put myself in all of this. I don't know, Iggy and the stooges got #69 in VH1 top 100 albums of all time, so I guess that counts for something. I spent that last $8 on a Joan Jett album, I think I am in love. Later, —Tom Dupere THREE POOPS Date: 1/23/01 That is one spooky poop story. It's hard not to love the word poop. —Sarah James, New York, New York Date: 1/23/01 Hi Andy, When dealing with toilets, I have found there to be no substitute for the "American Standard" brand. Although the design this firm employs will never win any awards for artistic merit, I have yet to be confronted with an episode of clogging which can't be quickly remedied by simply reaching down into the bowl with one's hand and dislodging the offending "debris." —John B. Hogan, Boston, Massachusetts Date: 1/25/01 My toilet is currently broken. Maybe if I call in a couple professionals, it might suddenly work on it's own? (see Murphy's Law _sect 13.2) —Mike Nelson, San Diego, California SEWING SHIT TOGETHER Subject: Do you know why there are 13 stripes on the american flag? Date: 1/23/01 Andy, School is back in effect, trying to become an expert at time overmanagement. I have a show going on in March so I am going to be inhaling spirits for the next two months or so—I am looking forward to it. What do you do when you have no money but you hate all of your clothes? Is it time to go naked or start sewing shit together for some serious change? I had a dream the other night that my mom was telling me that I was concieted. I was listened, baffled, 'cause I never thought that I was or am but she seemed to have a really good argument which bummed me out. —Joey Murdach back