No chronology of my life would be complete without a few representative examples from my short-lived and largely unfunny ‘publication’ entitled Trash. This was the successor to the hugely politically incorrect Funshiet, of which my friend Jeff Flinn and I created together in eighth grade. While I think most of his material was more creative, he lacked the obsessive nature that I had that drove me to want to seriously create and distribute this written nonsense.
Old magazines provided excellent material to twist
Generic tasteless humor
An old film guide called Rating the Movies provided a few items to skew
The joke here revolved around my supposed rudeness. The spelling of my daughter’s name came from Ashleigh Heath, the girl indicated here. Reed’s eighth grade moustache was a constant source of amusement as well.
Therefore I branched out into my own direction with Trash. There were only five issues created – and only three entirely completed. In order to seriously make this something that I could pass around without fear of retribution, I began to phase out the making fun of other students and tried to go into a more generic direction – eventually taking it to the phony tribute, and finally the dramatic and overblown fictional conspiracy.
It was clear where my inspiration came from
If I was going to poke fun at a real person, it was better if I let them in on the joke – and got their approval. I was obviously maturing.
When all else fails, kill off the supposed publisher
Real students (and one teacher) actually signed off on this nonsense. President Carter’s name was obviously forged.
My ideas kept getting more unique – or should I say weirder
There isn’t really much to laugh at here, but it certainly indicated my drive to creatively publish something. These began in December of 1985 and ended in February of 1986. Of utmost significance is that by the Fall of 1986, I would be creating a real publication: the newsletter for our Towed in a Hole Tent chapter of the Sons of the Desert.
Return to 1986…
Interesting. In 8th grade I was more worried about boys and gaining weight than creating my own publication. That’s pretty creative, I must say!
Amber
February 22nd, 2008