This is thee Black Leather Times Newsletter first one I've seen... Page 1 BLACK LEATHER TIMES Despite feeling like killing ourselves at thee moment, we printed 2000 of the little monstrosities you hold in your hand. BLT now reaches at least 2000 of you degenerate freaks. This here is the New Year's/Suicide issue. Time to usher in the New Year with joy and good tidings and razor blades. We here are ushering in the New Year in the street. We called code enforcement on our scrooge-like, sexist, unlisted phone-owning, water company- cheating landlord so he keeps giving us bad references. He claims that we demolished our home and had ten extra people living here, although he confesses that we did always pay the rent on time. Aside from water damage cause by his unwillingness to fix anything, our house is in the same shape we got it in. Yeah, the wiring and the furnace are fire hazards, but we didn't do that. But, wherever we are moving to, we will have phone and mail forwarding. There may be some double-forwarding going on, though, so please be patient if you send us stuff this month. The next issue of BLT will be out in March. DEADLINE FOR OUR CAREERS ISSUE IS MARCH 3, 1993. Feel free to submit your extremely short essays on the topic of employment in the counterculture. Fuck the bank I work for! Fuck the bank! Well, I don't work for a bank, but someone from Kids in the Hall once impersonated a bank employee and it spoke to me. Anyway, tell the class about appropriate work attire, being fired, freak jobs, and what you want to be when you grow up--a desktop publishing temp, a videograper, a stagehand, a rock jouralist, an escort, a pornographer, or the manager of an adult boutique. But, enough about me...For now still write us at 14207 Chesterfield Road, Rockville, Maryland 20853 and call us at (301) 971-0119. The number should roll over to a voice mailbox. Our new improved ad rates for our new improved circulation are as follows: $95 for a full page, $50 for a half page, $25 for a quarter page. We no longer accept personals or other smaller ads except in the case of trades. Note: This is still a deal as ads defray but do not begin to cover printing and distribution costs. Your parents put up with it when you got caught painting an anarchy symbol on the principal's desk. They dealt with it when you sold your younger sister X. They only screamed at you for a while when you dropped all your college courses in October and didn't mention the fact until now. They will not, however, respond well to your New Year's Ece champagne and Percodan suicide attempt. They will blame it on us if they find a tattered BLT in the pocket of your puke-stained leather tux. We all are depressed enough as it is. If you make our lives harder by siccing your grieving mom on us, we will help her desecrate your corpse by mowing off your mowhawk. HAPPY NEW YEAR! LOVE, AMELIA AND THE ENTIRE BLT STAFF Head Bludgeon: Amelia G Mutilation X-acto: Forrest Black Suicide Notes: Briannn McKenzie, Maggie Leslie, Charles Wayne, Chris with hair, Will Judy, Max Glick, Colin MacDonald, Scott Smith, Red Steve Blood Fingerpainting: Fish, Eric "Slash" Dunn P2 WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS: LAST DITCH REASONS NOT TO KILL YOURSELF by Will Judy #1. YOU WILL FUCK UP - In the best case scenario, you puke before you manage to absorb enough of Mom's sissy-tranqs to get brain damage. In the worst case, the phone rings just as your chucking the shotgun under your chin and you wind up spending the rest of your life in restraints with five- sevenths of your face gone, being spoon-fed by the people you hate most. Killing someone face to face in cold blood is incredibly difficult - ask anyone you know in the military - and there are serious logistical problems involved in amateur do-it-yourself endeavors of and sort. Think about it: people who wouldn't dream of giving themselves a haircut for fear of the consequences will set about murdering themselves with total confidence. If you can't rally your resourses enough to make rational sense of the things that you are making you wishful of death, you are in no condition to try and kill someone on your own. #2. YOUR METHODS WILL PROVE UNSOUND - No plan is foolproof, and things that one imagines would kill anyone but Rasputin and Mighty Mouse may in fact prove non-lethal. I know a man who jacked enough heroin once to nod out Oklahoma, slashed his wrists and hopped into a hot bath knowing oblivion was just around the corner. He woke up in a lukewarm tub of Kool Aid-colored water, feeling not too refreshed but quite alive. Calculating a lethal dose that your body will not flag and expel is a job for a trained pharmacist, even a .44 up your nose can leave you brain-damaged but alive and aware, and ropes and razors are notoriously unreliable. The Japanese who made an art from of suicide, required that practitioners have a backup man at the ready, whose services were nearly always employed. It works, but if you can talk your best friend into helping you kill yourself, there is a clearly more obvious solution to your troubles than suicide. #3. DEATH SUCKS SHIT-CAKED WARTHOG COCKS - Death is the enemy. Life may tuck your arm up between your shoulder blades and fuck you twice daily, but it affords you opportunities to fuck back if you are there to grab them. Not so Death. Death is the ultimate totalitarian. All the frumpy pallor-fetishists in head to toe black you see at shows may wear death-cult symbols and complain constantly, but note that they are still alive, presumably by choice. This is not hypocrisy, this is embracing life by an alternative means. Celebrating life by denying the existence of death is the strained, primary-colors-only pseudo-joy of golfers and guidance counselors. Celebrating life while unflinchingly facing death's inevitability and omnipresence is glory itself. #4. YOUR DEATH WILL BE BLAMED ON SOMETHING UTTERLY IMBECILIC, Like listening to Skinny Puppy of Reading Nasty 'Zines - And wouldn't that be disgraceful. P3 ASK SCOTT AND STEVE Dear Scott and Steve, I asked my boyfriend to move in with me, but he said no. What should I do? -- Lonely and Rejected Dear Reject, I would like to tell you that I am filled with sympathy for your sad plight...But this is simply not the case. Unfortunately, my attention is presently occupied with my plans for world domination. Scott (my fellow future world tyrant) smokes way too much crack to be good at the detail work. But I digress. Fortuately for you, Scott and I keep out thumbs firmly on the cartoid arteries of modern lifem and shall endevor to assist you. After lengthy (the time it takes me to hook up a nitrous tank) deliberation, it occurs to me that your only solution is the traditional (yet touchingly romantic) murder- suicide. A frighteningly lifelike penis can be molded from a combination of plastic explosive and thermite. Whilst sodomizing your true love, recite the more tragic of Byron's poems (or just Morissey lyrics). Then, sensitively, lovingly set off the deadly strap-on. Burning chemicals will go through his intestines (and your own plumbing) like Jeff Dahlmer through a high school wrestling team. Your eyes will jet across the room. Definite closed-casket material. Dear Scott and Steve, Every time I have an orgasm, I have an undying urge to jump off my partner (or whatever), go outside, bray like a donkey, run in three circles, and roll in the leaves. Is this genetic or dietary. -- Puzzled Dear Unwitting Tool of Baal, Your curious habit is not dietary or geneticin orgin, but a product of your pathetic New Age need to wear crystals as power objects. This has opened the way for Baal the Earth Pig, one of my chief competitors for blood and souls. (My fellow force of Unnature, Steve, prefers more secular offerings such as adrenal glands and PCP)... Don't forget cash, Scott... The strange acts you describe are but a simple and primitive invocation. To rid yourself of this embarrassing yet entertaining affliction, first you must divest yourself of these sad and ridiculous so-called "talismans" AND THEN COME TO ME! Once you have become my semen-splattered geni-thrall and been inoculated with my turgid flesh-lance Baal shall be driven from you. TAMPER NOT WITH THAT WHICH IS BEYOND YOUR PATHETIC MORTAL COMPREHENSION! Submit! Tired of the troublesome burden of free will? Ask Scott and Steve, 14207 Chesterfield Road, Rockville , MD 20853. Write now or we'll smear your quadriplegic grandmother's naked body with rancid bacon fat and cast her into a wading pool filled with rabid weasels. P4 XMAS GIVES ME A VIOLENT REACTION by Charles Wayne Do not discuss the term "Xmas". Unless you're using this as pure shorthand, you're fucked. If you use it because the Christ part of Christmas offends you, and you don't even know what the mas part means, then you're ignorant. If you insist on pointing out how X is the intial of the Greek word Christos, then you know too much. You should be made to be the love toy of a battalion of Greek sailors. Stay alert for all those Merry Malcolm Xmas cards due at you local mall Card Shoppe any time now. Finally, if you ARE going off yourself this season, do it with some style. Dress up like a memeber of the G.I. Joe team. Rush into a toy store with a flamethrower. Babble to the Barbies about a broken heart. Swear at the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for dodging the draft. Immolate them all screaming "MOMMY SAID I WAS BAD!" Then turn the flame on yourself. Make sure lots of kids see you. Have a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. ADVERT- The Zone LARPG(?) & Referees are not affliated with Fantek and EveCon/ CastleCon. Zone 3 will NOT be run at either of these conventions. Watch for future announcments on the location / date of Zone 3. For details Please Write Stephen Ledebur 7427 Long Pine Drive Springfield, VA 22151 ADVERT- FANDOM IS KILLING SCIENCE FICTION. Fan is short for fanatic. Fanticism kills. It's killing science fiction by turning it into a cliched, stagnant literary ghetto, custom-made for the infantile tastes of the armies of fanboys that have risen to posess the genre and its markets. If science fiction is to survive as a viable and meaningful liturature of the future, we must liberate it! KILL FANDOM NOW. box 1186 euless tx 76039 usa P5 VIVA CON GUSTO, VAYA CON DIOS by Colin MacDonald So something finally pushed you over the edge this time. Maybe it's because you unemployably stupid, ugly beyond the furthest reaches of reconstructive surgery, or emotionally destroyed by the breakup of you last relationship/favorite band. You've finally had to admit to yourself that you're really never going to get thin, laid, or a real job; and you've realized just how slim you chances of winning the lottery are. Whatever. The point is that you're sitting there, sucking cold steel and cordite, about to make your death as lonely, miserable, pathetic, and pointless as your life. You could at least have a little fun first. Think about it! Every reason you've ever been given for not doing something fun boils down to, "You'll get hurt," or maybe, "You'll get hurt real bad." Which dosen't hold much sway when you're actually planning on being dead. At this point, you're not going to live long enough to gain weight, harden your ateries, catch a disease, or pay your speeding tickets. In fact, you don't have to worry about being punished for any of your crimes. The only thing the police can do is hunt you down and shoot you, shit, YOU were gonna do that anyway. So why not go for it? I mean, hey, Rodney King got loaded and took LAPD on a 110-mile-an-hour Urban Redneck Steeplechase, and he just got the shit mercilessly beaten out of him by a bunch of racist authority fanatics. Imagine how much fun you could have if you're wired into a state of Premeditated Reptilian Menace on crystal meth, armed to the teeth, and hell-bent on not wasting any ammo on yourself. And in case anyone might wonder why the movie of your life is being cut short, put the folks responsible in the credits. Remember your geriatric Nazi third grade teacher? Your petty bureaucrat boss? The bloated, sweat-dripping land-slug who spent ALL last Friday night at the club trying to convince you that you've been waiting all your life for HIS dick? "Yeah, give me detention. Dock my pay. Stick your dinky in this big boy!" Needless to say, neither the author nor the BLT corporate entity endorse this sort of activity (at least not enough to risk legal culpability). But if you do decide to do something like this, tip us off so we can get the novel/film/TV mini-series/Saturday-morning cartoon rights. P6 DIFFICULTY WALKING INTO THE NEW YEAR by Max Glick Okay. You made it through Christmas and what have you got to show for it? An empty bank account, a maxed out credit card, twenty pairs of socks and a family and girlfriend who probably think your cheap. Of course, you had a $200 limit on your VISA and $100 in the bank from week of work. Then, you lie in bed, thinking that your life is pathetic, trying to find out how many socks can be attached to one human at one time. Then your housemate walks into your rooms and finds you wearing six pairs of socks on your feet, two on each hand, one on each ear, one over your penis, one over your tongue, and two more pairs lying on the floor. This is typically the time when your housemate offers you a drink to rid you of your depression. You should not stumble out of your house like this as you will dirty your nice new socks. To prevent muss, switch the socks with some similar object, such as party hats. You'll find that many others have also has this idea. By the time you sober up, you'll just be sitting in your room wondering where all these socks came from. P7 DATE HELL: I MET HER MOM by Chris with Hair I was dating this girl a couple of years ago. Without getting into the gory details, we were quite a hot item, very intense relationship at this point. One day, she picked me up from the Metro and we were in her car. "We have to go and visit my mom for a while. It's been a while since I visited and I want her to meet you." "Okay." At this point, I took out my wallet to check on my money situation for our plans later. My girlfriend noticed when my Elvis picture fell out. "Oh wow! My mom likes Elvis too." This was significant. We get to her mom's house in a red neck community somewhere southeast of Manassas. The house was a white one level with the paint chipping off in places. We go in and there's her mom and her boyfriend on the couch watching soaps. Her mom jumps up and gives her a hug and gives me one too. Her mom was cool, don't get me wrong, she was extremely nice. She even exclaimed to her daughter how cute I was. Then, my girlfriend said the magic phrase that bonded me to her mom: "Chris like Elvis too, Mom!" I saw the kitchen that held the entire set of Branford Exchange Elvis Collector Plates, the velvet Elvises, and all the other Elvis paraphernalia. I was trapped. I sat down and looked through all of Mom's Elvis records as they were handed to me and disscussed the merits of the different stages in "THE KING's" career. After a while, my girlfriend and her mom went away to chat while I was left with Trailer Trash Travis. It went kinda like this: "I was in the service stationed in Germany in the early seventies...Damn! I loved that place, I drank so much beer, I saw Black Sabbath over there. I was on leave for three days and there i was, drunk, stoned, tripping, and watching Ozzy. He was, right there, in that tasseled jacket. I mean that was heavy! Not like that shit metal now. Black Sabbath has to be one of the greatest American bands ever!" I didn't want to argue. He told me about a Led Zepplin show in Munich where he "fucked the living shit out of three hot Kraut chicks that thought I was Jim Morrison." My ear then focussed on a scene brewing outside where ol' mom was explaining to the guy she was seeing on the side that now was not a good time to come inside. He began to yell "You bitch! You fucking whore! Don't you fucking do this shit to me! No one fucking makes ME look fucking stupid!" While all this was going on, the Boyfriend I had to talk to remained oblivious to everything that was going on. I don't see how. The guy outside was loud and right outside the window where both of us could plainly see him. This guy had no clue; he was busy telling me what a hot fuck my girlfriend's mom was. He also told me, quite secretively, that he regularly cheats on the woman but he would never tell her. All this while, the brawny side dish was outside screaming. The indoor boyfriend had no shame; he proceeded to ask me about how good the "snatch" I was with was. "I would love to grab that ass!" I was in Hell. My beloved girlfriend came back with her mom a little later, and we left. I was sooooooooooooooo happy. P8 UNIQUELY DEAD by Maggie Leslie Shooting yourself in the head, hanging yourself in your room, overdoses, they all seem so passe, so overused, so 1992. Here are some unique ways of killing yourself, many of which have the advantage of making look like someone else's fault so you could conceivably get other people in trouble for your suicide: 1. Have your boyfriend give you a coat hanger abortion and hemmorage to death at a pro-choice rally. 2. Shoot yourself in the stomach and sit in the doorway of a hospital with a note pinned to yourself reading, "I have no health insurance and AIDS." 3. Give yourself a heroin overdose at a NORML concert. 4. Pour A-1 on yourself and throw into the lion cage at the zoo. 5. (Along the same lines) cover yourself in peanut butter and go sleep in DC's infamous Rat Park (located at the end of F Street NW near the 930 Club). 6. Put your mohawk up and all of your leather on and go into Hillbilly Heaven on Route One and start yelling about how much you hate rednecks but you would really like to fuck one. 7. Tell Scott and Steve all about how much happier their loves would be if they gave themselves to ritualized mainstream religion and helping others. 8. Go to a skinhead concert wearing a tie-dyed American skinhead t-shirt with your hair in dreadlocks and punch a few of the ol-boys in the face while moshing. (I know someone who tried this and it would have worked too, if his friends hadn't made him turn the shirt inside-out.) 9. Fly Eastern 10. Listen to 100 straight hours of Joy Division albums. 11. Show up at a KKK rally wearing a pink sheet with a lamda on the front. P9 SUICIDE, WHAT IT MEANS TO ME by Briannn McKenzie Suicide. I think everyone should try it at least once just to get in touch with their tolerance to the dangers that surround us in our everyday lives. Besides, it may just reduce the number of pathetic, weak, self-pitying assholes who wouldn't know real suffering if it shoved an exhaust pipe down their throat. As children, we never had an understanding of what suicide is (unless your religious-know-it-all-eat-shit parents explained it to you, in which case you still don't know, so go molest your children you fucking #$#^%^&$^^&@^!...) We barely even understand death before age thirty. But since I've gone from lollypops and Kool Aid to bourbon and cigarettes, I have actually achieved a better reference base for such matters. You see, I don't hate people; I just don't like them. This being said, if you're going to shoot yourself, AIM FOR YOUR HEAD not your leg you sympathy-grabbing dick-bag! If you decide to use a razor, ACTUALLY CUT YOURSELF! There is nothing I hate more than a failed suicide. It's this type of person who will talk about "it" all the time and show off their scars (which they swear you can see when it's hot out). Then they start crying and all you can do is either comfort them or take advantage of their less than reasonable state and fuck their brains out for two days. I choose the latter because I wouldn't like then and I certainly wouldn't date them, so what the hell. I can't wait for the last week of January because that is when they usually get out of the institution the holiday season drove them to. By the second week of Ferbruary, I've had my fill of abusing them and sucking them dry to pay my way through beauty school...and they're out of my life and back in therapy. What a life-affirming experience. ADVERT- SEE THE WORLD BEFORE IT ENDS! Has anyone else noticed the feeling of unreality that television news has been invoking lately? See the world with you own eyes. *Meet fellow travelers *Find alternative destinations *Experience different cultures. The new guide to traveling through the underground. THE CRASH NETWORK Send US$1 or stamps to: The Crash Network 519 Castro Street #7 San Francisco, CA 94114 USA P 10 PARTY TIPS by Amelia G There are a number of items you will need to throw a good New Year's Party. 1) One unwitting person's house. 2) Two crates of pre-gummed glitter confetti. 3) Three cases of Kool Aid mix. 4) Four gallons of grain alcohol. 5) Five jars of Crisco. 6) Six underage friends who feel a burning need to... Well, I don't think I can really write anything funny about throwing parties right now. I love throwing parties. Yeah, some asshole/close friend always offends the neighbors and pees in the backyard or vomits in the laundry machine or tries to fuck and do drugs in your room or breaks something by "just leaning on it" they swear. But I love giving parties. I'm a workaholic and I love getting an evening where my only assigned talk is to have fun. Well, as the Cambodian crew we had a bunch of parties and I enjoyed that, but Cambodia as a house is no more. I was quite ready to move on and have huge blow-outs in a new environment. I wanted to live in a house with more firearms, less bickering, and a more diverse guest list. We found a place. We set a date for our first bash. We named our new home Hollow Point. We got a bad recommendation from our landlord. We were screwed. If I had to sleep the crusty-eyed morn of January 1, 1993...I would feel more inclined to usher in the New Year with a guffaw. But don't worry, this will be a humor 'zine again in our upcoming careers issue. Mutant inability to get a career on track? Very funny. Grotesque relations with partners with cool haircuts and social diseases? A giggle and a half. The dumb-ass lies freaks lies tell themselves and their loved ones every day? Hilarious. My landlord ran up a three thousand dollar water bill before I moved in and he wants me and mine to pay it if we want a good enough recommendation to move out of his leaky fire-trap? My resolution for 1993 is to see the humor in that. I know it's in there somewhere. ADVERT- OFFENSIVE? (Two T-shirts one that says "I'm with Stupid" and has an arrow pointing down to your dick (Black on ash) and thee other saying "Fuck You" (White on Black)) 100% Cotton Heavyweight T-Shirts. $11.95 each plus $1.00 for postage. Ask for out catalogue of other outrageous designs. YOU BE THE JUDGE ICON MEDIA WORKS 4865 Virginia St. Alexandria VA 22312. Allow 2-3 weeks for delivery. Call (703)-642-3684 for info on custom shirts for bands and other organizations. P.S. If you like this as. we also do freelance desktop publishing and design. BACK COVER BLUE BLOOD GOTHIC KINKY LEATHER TATTOOED LATEX BONDAGE INDUSTRIAL VAMPIRIC The 48 glossy full-size pages of the current issue include 4 hot pictorials, original fiction by S. N. Lewitt, plus articles on the most desirable comic book characters, guns, photo manipulation, how to drink blood properly and more! This is erotica for people who like to hang out in dark smoky clubs, for people who listen to music that other people don't, for people who do what other people wouldn't, for people who read what other people couldn't. THIS IS SEX FOR YOU. Name: Street Adress or P.O. Box: City: State: Zip Code: Country: Phone Number (optional): My signature certifies I am over 18: If you live in the USA, send your check or money order for $20 made payable to BLT. One year subsciptions are $33 for international readers. Send funds, submissions, photos, review materials, dark chocolate-covered coffee beans adn the like to 14207 Chesterfield Road, Rockville, Maryland 20953 USA. Feel free to photocopy this form or just send us a $20 check with "Blue Blood sub" written in the memo area. Thank you! (Strange bunch they are...but I did get a kick outta it...)