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Dearest, I am contacting you today to remind you that anything that has happened until this issue has been 100 percent the truth. Any slanderings to the name Bad Jack will be used against you in a court of pause… You cannot say as a reader of these zines that the genuine and unabashed talents shared amongst this fair city haven’t surpassed your expectations. Poopoo to anyone who hasn’t eaten a hot dog to our book, who hasn’t wept reading one of our published works, who hasn’t drank a shot chuckling at a poor man’s shared journalings. And fuck us good and raw doggedly if you haven’t. We hope that you relish your time in this issue’s buns. Cheers, move out of the way, and it’s all love, Bad Jack
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Brought to you with love by editors Katryn Dierksen, Daniel W.Wright, Frances Garren, Chris Zuver, Zoë Scala, RC Patterson, Jacob L.E. Oliver, Clara Stone, Mackenzie Thorn, and Oscar Wright.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Carrie
Juenger........1,8,12,17,21,28,30,31,35
RocĂo B...................................1,23,24 Mackenzie Thorn..............................2,17 Bekah Fischer...................................2 Sean Arnold.....................................3 Greg Edmondson..............................3,4,27
Spencer Hughes.............................5,6,33 Vincent Bottom..................................7 Tylr Gottschalk...........................9,13,32 Kelsie Bethune.................................10 Elise Giammanco.............................11,29 Brianna Price..................................14 David Marina...................................15 Keith Landrum...............................18,24 Dan Provost....................................19 Katryn Dierksen.............................20,34 Susan Lively................................22,26 Xander Millsap.................................22 Max Killer.....................................25 RC Patterson...................................36 ii.
BABYTEETH Rocío B. hmm very curious how i share the blood + handwriting of a boy whose skin and facial features put him at a risk i can’t fathom sunburnt white jokes about pickin cherries “you look like a terrorist!” yet the babyteeth are the ones who pose the greatest risk welcomed into churches with open arms only to open fire but no “they’re just troubled” “we’ll never know why he did it” “My name causes national security alerts, what does yours do?” “And it’s hard it’s funny Irreversibly if you really think about it Falling in between” -Mariah Carey, how they say there was a certain day “Outside” in history when the irish became white
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blinded by youth Mackenzie Thorn We dive into the green and hide in between the patient trees. Silent hostages chained to the eternal mother. You lay in the pine needles and maple leafs The summer air still scratching at the back of my neck, and like the heavy fermenting regret that saddles upon old age, It folds us into the dirt and into each others arms. We bend and mold, Until you break. The blood burning bright against the rotting hues of fall. You clenched the dirt in your fists, And sang silent harmonies with the trees that surrounded us. We dusted off our knees and emerged from youth as we broke the tree line. Never to return Holding dirty clammy hands.
(left) Horse Pattern, green 2016 Carrie Juenger (below) Bekah Fischer 35mm film on Minolta x-700
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#Vanlife?
Sean Arnold
With the concept of #Vanlife, comes a new take on hippie bohemian culture. The New Yorker summarizes in the article, “#Vanlife, the Bohemian Social-Media movement”, that although young folks were first introduced to the #Vanlife phenomenon by Chris Farley joking about living in a van down by the river, they later took to its message of neo-hippie freedom and “an enviable life”. Propelled by Instagram, this hashtag amassed a large following. And why not? Who hasn’t felt stifled by a 9-5 and wished that instead of watching the dust gather from the alley of their apartment building, they were looking out on the sunsetting over the Pacific from a vacant California beach? Some of us might even feel that we are destined for or deserve this sort of freedom. These promises of freedom are deeply rooted in dropout and also American culture. Here are some memories of when Rooster Jake bought a 1980s GMC conversion van for $1000 and six of us travelled West from St. Louis playing avant-garde hip-hop accompanied by an experimental folk duo who also happened to be girlfriends at the time. -I drive Rooster, currently without a car, to a farmer’s field outside Columbia Missouri to check out this van. It is beige/cream. The same color as the inside of an old St. Louis apartment that has been smoked in for decades. -Rooster Jake buys the van with money he has saved from working the door at a bar in Soulard. He doesn’t ask any of us to contribute any cash and goes about booking shows at bookstores and cafes out West for our band The Garden Plot Jackals. I wash dishes and live in a rented room for $100 a month to save for my small share of the trip. -We stack on old mattress over where the third-row
seats would be. It would become the optimal seat in the van as we all got more and more tired, and I would become sick and have to lie down. Jake and his brother drove heroic night shifts while Gary, Coop, Dom and I took it easy. -Do we buy snow chains in Wyoming to make it to Idaho during the storm? Gary please don’t fucking smoke while you’re pumping gas. -The Van bit the dust in a Seattle suburb. We were outside a neighborhood wandering down the side of the road. We were drinking whiskey while Jake and his brother tried to figure out what the van needed to get running again. Two men emerged and offered to let us stay at their place. We learned later one had just been released from prison, and the other’s brother had just died. Gary is drinking whiskey the way runners in the summer drink water. He tries to sit down at some point and breaks their chair. I fell asleep to the sound of one of our crew trying to feed the men a tiny hit of acid. It was later established that the acid was never given. Nonetheless, our hosts began behaving strangely. I fell asleep on the couch with Coop as the hosts blared Steve Miller on vinyl. -We played a deserted show at an anarchist foundry in a warehouse in Seattle. Eventually we got the van going and drove it to Portland. It broke down in our friends driveway, and we spent the last of our money flying back to St. Louis where my parents picked us up. Coop took the Amtrak and arrived a week later. -Our friends with the driveway sold the van (along with the small trailer my dad had loaned us) and pocketed the cash.
(left) Leaving Texas in the Rain Greg Edmondson
(above) 32 Below Greg Edmondson
I Couldn’t Explain My Attraction Spencer Hughes (right and left) 5
Expression and Wonder 6
Don’t ever steal my breakfast again Vincent Bottom Why you little upturned table-whistler, pistachio tumbler You little dink trinket you huff snorter you snort huffer you Reese’s puffs huff snort poppin you Mary poppins-looking little son-of-a-dingus you Mary J Blige b-sides listening Why you opulent little foolhardy little piece of nothing pasted to a cardboard smacked up with peanut butter why not its winter, you little gum chewing wintergreen bitch triscuit eating shit grinning eyes too much on the prize a lot, you mouthbreathing son of a motherfucking snit.
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Toothpaste 3, 2015 Carrie Juenger
Odium Tylr Gottschalk Morning in your room Tends to start with the sun peeking through blinds, Illuminating your gaunt, skeletal figure. I will admire every beautiful bone that protrudes From soft, pale, freckled flesh. I will beg you to teach me how to love again. Morning in your room I will wrap myself around you, Like a vine claiming the tree his home. I will grow into every wound and scar on your body. I will fill you with a reason to endure life, Persevere through pain, and Resist your anguish. I will give you vindication, Confidence, and willpower. Even if it means losing my own. Morning in your room You will blame me for every drop of blood spilled. You will scream my name in disgust. You will hate me for everything you’ve done. Morning in your room Overflows with sunken dread and trepidation. Every time the phone rings from old friends, I will push them out in hopes of you letting me in.
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Mourning in your room, I will pack each bag in silence. I will bury you over and over again, Replace idealism with dread. Only to unearth you In every nightmare In the coming weeks, Months, Years. I will convince myself that My love Will only fall on deaf ears.
o god Kelsie Bethune 10
It’s Just My Imagination (Again) Elise Giammanco We began talking about everything at once. We were like overly eager weavers whose fingers could not work as quickly as their vision – we were throwing down threads of conversation and couldn’t keep track of them. The wide tapestry was beautiful regardless and only beginning to be woven. He looked into my eyes like we met centuries ago in wet, crystal caves where I first thought of the idea of what it is like to fall in love five hundred lifetimes before this one. I bit my lip hard in excitement, ruby red droplets anticipating my vulnerability for opening up to strangers, something I respect and hate about myself. I am addicted to ripping off the band aid and exposing the welts of my history, pulsing and scarred over like it’s the most intriguing thing about me. Like if I didn’t bring attention to my bank robber father and crackhead mother I would be as bad as they were. Like I was hiding a horrible part of me and I felt guilty about it. Like if he had to find out on his own through internet searches or through other sources besides my own mouth, I would be devastated. It’s like that. But this time, it felt different, and that was the least interesting thing about me. I was bleeding at the lips discussing external topics with ease like trips to Chile and winters in Moscow next to the cool summers of Colorado, eager to banter in German and Russian and oh, how he has cleverly drawn me out of my own cavern inside my mind. What can I do but see him as soon as the stars would allow me on this late summer in Saint Louis? I stepped out on my back porch, barefoot and gleaming into the light of my device like who is this essence of a person who has piqued my picky interest?
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He had me instantly imagining us dancing with Spanish beauties in black leather. I visualized being the type of girl who keeps her hair long and lips red like wet cherries in sunlight. I imagine being on snow covered mountains in sweaters while kissing him in between discussions on Hellenistic architecture and mathematical concepts. I imagined him into existence – now only if he would appear so we can start weaving.
untitled collage 2015 Carrie Juenger 12
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(above) Untitled Brianna Price
(left) Stay Tylr Gottschalk
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I Bought Some Money David Marina I Bought Some Money, Or, the ENNUI THAT ENCAPSULATES MY LIFE. II. The Part About Time, Or, The Twilight/Haze that took me over at Age Thirty Commonplace, you and I, commonplace, the dream I, the dream I glance away, Lingua leans lethargically listlessly lending lords love like we did. (Language is created by men who deem themselves deities) Like we did some time ago when my grandfather’s Spanish guitar sang in open G. Like we did some time ago when my grandfather’s father made notes on parabolic motion and he became renowned in town not only for his ability in performing the Eucharist but also his ability to throw rocks at the Turkish bandits that came about: a Christian town is never in danger of threats that aren’t smitten purely by stone: purely by japes-jokes Judas joyously jostles John: John japes at Judas who art in Judecca. Anon we seek and anon we know. Soon the blood of everyone will meet in a common ravine that no one calls anything because no one really likes the look of it. A priest that pours his diligence into every pore of his work: Is not something I want to be ( I have nothing really to say) (Admitted but still redacted). So Sarah II smokes simultaneously: salvia stored somewhere, somewhere someone seeks something, something so... + Sarah I’s salty, sulfuric smelling ashes.
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Bernard London: Let us get high on drugs past their expiry: Past expiry was the necrophage of your soul: but I digged it. Past expiry was the dream I lived in: like I glanced in at a decrepit building, Like I glanced in something of yours, Like I glanced out at the shipyard, Like I glanced as the steam/smoke/sut(S, shitty, salient, snake-like character) blew, blew, blew all the across from my side of the ocean all the way to you. Like I was prone to do I dropped the curtains and retreated back to my study: Like I was prone to do I stopped: and I layed in bed feeling + not feeling at all, Like: the smoke wandered into my mind and possessed my dreams, and then you felt that stimulaic moment. (Aside: that moment I felt) Like the lobotomious powders that were more often than not used to damage all trace of distinct consciousness + all trace of any ID that is stamped into any cingular cellular component: never used: and I mean never used to heal a past memory(which is what their marketed affection was). Like the narconious powders that were brought out of the Afrikaans by Kommando units to the nostrils of German housewives ( but I consumed in Morocco). Like the Kind that now holds a Mauser in a deserted Berlinaic(No longer Berlin, ma/pa/sibling dead) apartment: his aim wavers and he is prone to missing but oftentimes it’s because his mother’s corpse is swaying like a pendulum and he is penetrated by it’s movement: she peeks out of the closet with a makeshift noose (no pearls, no longer, no more… ). Like I was prone to fall into a daze on a Moroccan morning while my lady brings me a cup of tea and a kiss on the cheek. Like i was never really anything.
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blessed is this mess Mackenzie Thorn Dirty laundry splayed across the bedroom floor Heavy and hole ridden, Lead filled cotton cadavers. White tape sunlight silhouettes’ my quiet crime scene through the window blinds. Chest compressed until regular heart beats return, When will you learn? To break bread and ribs from flower peddles Make lemonade from crimson puddles Blood rots in shy smiles from across the bar Let me be your maggot My life depends on your demise Your cooling dermis Your stagnant stare Your brilliant stillness Lips turn from red to blue like Alaskan sunsets. I cannot forget your stale breath
Partied Out 2014 Carrie Juenger
in my head Keith Landrum
Shake my head for an hour My hands tremble My left eye twitches My heart swings
It was you or me You or me You or me
Paths to Nowhere/Somewhere Dan Provost I never went for the family plan---or waited for the virgins to dance out of the moonlight. Seduced by the drunk and the vile, I chased the dirty dream and woke up in a pile of discarded toys. My childhood was entrenched with a slap from my father Adulthood began with a walk on knives…cuts and scrapes covered my body as I walked from wet dream to infatuation with the social worker who lived down the hall. Now I am the old man who worships the young ducks who flap in the crosswalk as I drive on my trip to nowhere. Screams from unwritten sonnets fail to bother me anymore—I just watch the slutty woman pass me by on their way to heaven. Poetry can die a little each day I suppose… I know I do…
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Beach Babe Shadows Katryn Dierksen 20
(below) Purple Pig Carrie Juenger
(right) Hurricane Susan Lively
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Untitled Xander Millsap Sarah stood spouting scathing slogans slamming Sherif Smith. “Surely shit shoveling sheriff’s shouldn’t shear sheep!” she shouted. Sam, Sarah’s son’s schoolmarm, smirked sardonically seeing Sarah. She suspected Sarah’s spouse’s suicide somehow spawned Sarah’s seething slander. Sam soon supplied salutations. “So, Smith started shearing sheep?” “Sherif Smith stupidly supposes Seth sought soul shattering suicide,” she started. “Seth scorned suicide. Some sadistic sociopath staged Seth’s suicide. Somewhere Seth’s slayer still sleeps soundly,” She snarled. “So, soiled sheep shearing symbolizes someone supporting spurious suicide?” “Somewhat. Similarly, Smith’s sham services soundly squander sensibility. Sheriffs sporting such sordid skills should simply start shoveling shit somewhere, so saving shepherds.” “Several simpletons still support Smith.”
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“Seth’s son Sean simultaneously suffers Smith’s sycophants.” Spotting Sarah, somber sidewalk strollers suddenly scampered. Sarah spontaneously stomped. Something squished, squirting sibilant squelches. Scanning scenery, Sam scoped some secluded statuary. Sam scooted, sensing Sarah’s sociability slanting sideways. Solemn seconds subdued Sarah’s solitary sole scraping. She stopped, staring stupefied. Sublime synchronicity shattered Sarah’s stolid stoop. She saw Sherif Smith slogging southwestwardly. Smith staggered slightly, seeming sloshed. Sarah’s senses swam. Synapses spawned sly surmisings. She strode spryly, slotting Smith’s saturnine sluice. Sweat stains stymied Smith’s swagger. Sarah’s savage sortie surprised Smith. She snagged Smith’s snubbed six-shooter. “S-s-s-sarah,” Smith stammered. “Say sayonara Smith!” Sarah spat. Smith’s sable sidearm sent sanguine spurts spattering. ••• Sam secretly saw Sarah’s salvo. So, staging Seth’s suicide successfully sparked Smith’s shooting. Sam’s sadistic smile sparkled.
SHAME Rocío B. are you ashamed of me? A
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WHATYOU’RELOOKINGFOR WHATYOUDESERVE ANDEXAMINEWHATYOUHAVE should you keep it?
FLESH WITHIN Rocío B. i feel like i always want to talk about this being, this animal a strange creature in my mouth i cannot speak, i cannot eat all i can taste is you sucking the blood out of my tongue i’m scared not of you but of those around me what they would do to me if they knew that you were in here i have this recurring dream, you see i’ve had it since i was nine that i would look in the mirror, unhinge my jaw and you would come flying out i hope someday you will so i can tell people about it all over and over and over and over and over again ad nauseam
ftf Keith Landrum
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Ghost Hunting Max Killer You’re here trying to convince me again to take this personally, and I’m here telling you again that personally I’m not taking part. We haven’t seen each other in months. What’s wrong with you? I came slowly to the decision to leave you and I see you never saw it coming and now you’re losing your mind. Do you remember what you said to me all of those times? You were cruel and you wanted everything. Forget it, you can find someone who wants everything from you, but you won’t accept that it’s not me. You’re only stubborn. Wake up today and think of someone new. Wonder for awhile if she’s into you. She is, but that’s not the point. The point is you wondering. You don’t really care how she feels as long as you can possess the idea of her feeling. You can punish her for everything that didn’t go right between us. I don’t want to know what she’s like. Is she down to earth? Is she light? Is she passionate? Maybe she’s cruel like you. Don’t tell me. I won’t imagine that you’re happy, because I want credit for your misery. I’m cruel too. Together you are probably a couple creeps. Who else could you attract? Do me a favor and don’t show me your stories anymore. Your writing is so selfish and misguided, it’s gross. You know only falsities.
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Of all the false things you see, the least of them that I can think of is me. I am nothing that you thought I was. I am killing the identities you loved so that they no longer exist for anyone. I burn pictures of you and erase them from my profile so that I am spotless of your fingerprints. If anyone puts us together they must be an investigator or a voyeur, but really there’s nothing special going on here. No one to look at all that happened to us. You go home and feel sorry for yourself no matter what. Seen Mar 28, 2018
Rainbow Explosion Susan Lively 26
Pyramid Greg Edmondson
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OMG Let’s Do That, 2016 Carrie Juenger
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The slender, wooden slivers prick the soft skin of my earlobes Our faces pressed tightly against the wooden panels of our parents’ bedroom door Eavesdropping over the low grumble of the heater Dad’s bright voice opposing mother’s sighs Sighs for goals long gone, impossible now There will be no heavenly ascent into marital bliss There will be no happy family portraits Our eyes widen at the sound of the news I rip my face away, tearing splinters of wood Now lodged in my cheeks Tiny pricks of pain Reminders of when things changed
The End of Mom and Dad Elise Giammanco
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Tammie and E.T. 2013\ Carrie Juenger
Tara 2016 Carrie Juenger 31
Heaven Tylr Gottschalk 32
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(left) False Memories Spencer Hughes
(below) on moms etheral hands Moody Rose Christopher
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Untitled collage 2016 Carrie Juenger 35
Pharmaceutical Priests RC Patterson I woke up addicted to painkillers in my simulation receptacle. Got to take a shot of whiskey or a sip of red wine before I began my day on Facebook. Commenting on posts, looking up articles on fossil hoaxes. Liking people posts less so they won’t show up in my newsfeed then stalking someone’s pictures because I want to more of their bodies. I know it creepy, but I have to fucking see them in a swim suite. I got out of bed and took some aspirin, my sister left me some oxy I take it instead of the sleepy time acetaminophen powder. I felt sick, nauseous the first time. Not I portion better. I like living, but I hate being alive. I make myself depressed so I can relive trauma and change the outcome. This time I wasn’t mean to my uncle before he died, this time I told her I see her flaws let’s work on them together. I drift into clothes, I drift through the day. I can’t maintain positive relationships. I always seem to destroy them, I get jealous because they are always doing better than me. I like living, but I hate being alive. I run away when instead of talking out, thank goodness for nicotine and caffeine. I just need fucking minute to fixate on the verdant grasses, vermillion and beryl flowers. Behind the bushy vail of ignorance, Big Pharma stabbed John Rawls and put me in a dream state where I’m having visual and auditory hallucinations. My reality was devised by the phallic priests of Freud’s deceased diseased puedoscience studies. My temporal temple is a temple to the USB. It is a port for electrochemical signals interpreted by my CPU as pleasurable sensations. Inputting aspirin, acetaminophen and sodium naproxen codes. Killing the kidneys on a systematic level. Alcohol causing the liver to become blacker than dark matter. My friend, a literal galaxy of verses, found that NSAIDS weren’t enough so he graduated to heroin. Heroines like dark matter, it forces stellar bodies apart. Until we are alone like Nyx, a stygian Atmosphere. In a stylish stygian receptacle designed by a marketing firm to appeal to the youth. Using street language painted on the exterior. This is how the corporal corporate state deals with all those it finds inferior.
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