OK, so, a field team from Pigdog Journal was dispatched to
this Webzine 98 craziness in order to cruise and schmooze.
I can't speak for the entire team, but I have to say on my
part that a good time was had.
Pigdog got there late in the evening -- like 10PM. We'd decided to meet at
Wa-ha-ka!, the up-scale taqueria, which was a fucking hell's nest of screeching
yuppie evil people. Not to mention the fact that we were attending in our
persona of Purpledyne Multimedia -- the hip, black-and-purple wearing New Media
gurus -- and we got a lot of evil looks and balled-up napkins thrown at us.
Early-comers hunkered down over pitchers of watery margaritas waiting for our
wiser comrades. All in all, Bunny, MLE, me, Murdock and Ratsnatcher were
there.
Also, Wendy from Pottymouth (http://www.arlington.com/~pmouth/) was there, so
we had to kind of be nice to her. Pottymouth is kind of the Radcliffe to
Pigdog's Harvard, y'know, so we have to hang out with them sometimes. Once we
were inside, she showed us all the crazy sex stuff they have on their site,
which is pretty darn a lot. But, still, we couldn't be as self-centered and
jingoistic as I usually am.
Anyways, we ambled over to Transmission theater around 10PM. We were fortunate
enough to miss most of the Digital Gar Gar Gar and arrive just in time for the
Aquamen to start playing. What blather we _did_ hear was intelligent and good,
but it was kind of preaching-to-the-choir stuff about non-commercialism on the
Web and how zines are real great and whatnot. I kinda got the feeling that the
speakers were generally pissed off at not having been invited to the Aspen
Institute or NPR's "Tech Nation" and were venting here instead. It seemed like
we were listening to _Wired_ magazine's second-string lineup.
Maybe I'm just bitter because no one from Pigdog was asked to talk. I dunno.
One nice thing was that Unamerican Activities (http://www.unamerican.com/) had
a table with all their stickers and t-shirts and shit. They were giving away
"FUCK WORK" stickers and I got, like, 600 of them. Bunny and MLE made
geometrical tattoos with "FUCK WORK" stickers on their arms and foreheads.
There were computers against one wall to look at the Web with. We managed to
take some time to seed all the computers with our URL, and to mock the other
sites that had their pages up. No offense to anyone reading, but we _R00L_
compared to some of the low-grade stuff out there.
By the time the Aquamen came on, we were bored and ready for some music. And
they ROCKED!!! the mic, bay-bee. Incredibly super-fantastic surf music. The
Pigdog team led the way in dancing like maniacs while other, cooler-than-thou
folks were still bobbing their heads. YAY for us.
Someone had brought these glow-stick hockey puck thingies, and Bad People up
front were kicking them around like soccer balls. We had no choice but to kick
them back. It was immature and indecorous, but it could not be helped.
By the time the Aquamen were done with their fabulous set, we were ready to go
dancing some more. So we went to a meat-market club down the street and danced
for a while there. Everybody ditched me around 4AM, probably because as a drunk
6'2" gray-haired guy in a beret and purple turtleneck doing the Funky Chicken,
I looked like a complete dork and they were embarrassed to be associated with
me. So, I walked home through the Tenderloin _alone_.
So, anyways, we had a good time. There were down sides, too, of course. First,
we didn't get in a fight with the Suck people. We got there and realized that
we couldn't actually identify them -- we were looking for people who looked
like those little cartoons they have on their site, like, hopping up and down
with little black clouds over their heads. Needless to say there weren't any
people that actually looked like that. Of course, this doesn't mean that we
won't brag about beating them up, anyways.
WE BEAT UP SUCK!! WOOOOO-HA! PIGDOG PIGDOG PIGDOG! GAR!
Now that I think about it, nobody else was really enthusiastic about this
bar-brawl idea except for me. I think I might have to just pretend I never
mentioned it. Anyways, check out the Aquamen, read lots of web zines, and stay
away from Wa-ha-ka!.
