(Hitlists, Stay Free! #3, Oct. 13 - Nov. 9, 1993)
Here's the scenario - Carrie McLaren asked me to contribute a hitlist to Stay Free!, her kick-ass local 'zine. This is what I came up with. Written in my upstairs room, probably late at night, and printed out on a...wait for it...dot-MATRIX printer. Coincidence? I think not. Hand-delivered to the editors (or at least given to Jay the next time I made it to the bottom of the stairs, so he could deliver it), because in the fall of '93, I was still six months away from getting an e-mail account (although our future housemate Chris Palmatier already had one through UNC, and Stay Free! was using it to receive online submissions - see below).
The Oct. 13 - Nov. 9 (aka November) issue's cover story was a Beginner's Guide to JFK Conspiracy Theories, written by Stay Free! co-conspirator Pat Anders, who had graduated from UNC Law in May (An unemployed attorney, Anders lives with his parents in Burlington). Around this time, Carrie was getting ready to leave Chapel Thrill behind for the Big Apple, where she would produce Stay Free! as a respected, full-fledged magazine for nearly ten years.
MY conspiracy theory on the subject is that Carrie brought copies of this particular issue up to NYC (out of a 6,000 print run) to help get Stay Free!'s name out there, and it became a hot item on the strength of Pat's cover story, running as it did exactly 30 years after JFK's assassination. Eventually, a copy found its way into the hands of...the Wachowski brothers! Who read my hitlist, threw in some shit from Jean Baudrillard, William Gibson, and Philip K. Dick, and voila! The result was an hugely profitable franchise called The Matrix. Where's my f-ing royalties, that's what I'd like to know. Although there's also a school of thought claiming they ripped it all off an episode of Doctor Who.
The Pink House was well represented in this issue. In addition to contributions from myself and Jay (his take on Chapel Hill Eyesores plus assorted record reviews including My Trip To Planet 9 by Justin Warfield - "This is the best rap record I've heard since Gang Starr's Daily Operation"), Chris Palmatier interviewed one of the guitarists from Pittsburgh-area rockers Don Cabellero, future resident and newly-minted veteran of the couch scene in N'Gai's room Grant Tennille reviewed Black Sunday by Cypress Hill ("What looks like death metal, sells like Garth Brooks, and makes you want to light another?"), and frequent houseguest Zak Bisacky did a review of Chapel Hill band June's debut 7", "I Am Beautiful."
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