APRIL 2016
Editor-in-chief Nina Braca Managing Editor Bruce Hamilton Layout Editor Ashley Yalaju Intern Deanna Castello Contributors Deanna Castello Ben Verde Bruce Hamilton Winnie McNally Dustin Dacier Avery Piper Cover by Dustin Dacier Purchase Media Director Julie Alegado
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Hello!!!! Happy April! It is kind of spring! The flowers are coming out! There is rain! The amount of work I have to do may literally kill me! A truly wonderful time of year. The semester might be coming to a close, but we are working hard on getting the annual NAKED ISSUE out, as well as doing some press for Culture Shock. We will also be at MSAF Fest doing all kinds of cool things on April 20th and at Zine Feast on May 1st. Fun times ahead, if we all make it there. Ha! But really. If you want to contribute anything, PLEASE DO! Email us at purchaseguttermag@gmail.com Come to our meetings! We meet Mondays @ 9pm in CCN room 24/25. Write about spring. Write about music. Write about how the moon landing was fake (if you don’t, I will). Nina
Gutter Mag is a non-profit magazine, paid for by the Mandatory Student Activities Fee. Gutter Mag is a forum for campus culture related content. Any opinions expressed are those of the writers, not those of Gutter Mag, its editors, or the PSGA. We accept submissions but the publication of those submissions is not guaranteed but subject to the discretion of the editors. Send all inquiries to purchaseguttermag@gmail.com
EULOGY FOR A ROCK BAND Ben Verde
I recently went through the demise of the band I started with two of my closest high school friends, and it’s been a very strange experience. I’ve always thought that a band is completely the same as being in a serious relationship, and the past few months have only confirmed that. I’ve gone from one serious, steady band that I write songs for, to three separate bands. You could say I’m playing the field. It’s been fun and exciting working with new people, but I can’t say I don’t miss my old band. The people in that band were some of my closest friends in high school (and still are, in college.) We would write songs during our free periods in the music room, then go to my house after school and put music to them. It never really felt like work though; it always just felt like we were just hanging out and messing around. We were all happy to be there, and none of us really had anywhere else to be, a feeling I’ve been missing a lot lately. The bond I had with my first bandmates was irreplaceable, and I’ll always value what I learned from working with them.
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GUTTER Q & A WITH RUSSEL THE LEAF GUTTER MAG: When did Russel the leaf start? EVAN MARRE: Russ started in high school not long after I joined my first band with my brother and two friends Mike and Bridie called Fine Folk. I loved contributing to the band, but I found it was fun to have my (at the time) secret little russ world where I could work on ideas all by myself and do whatever I wanted to songs and arrangements. GM: You seem to use a lot of different musical techniques/ instruments. Where do you think (musically) you are going to go from here? EM: I’m very inspired inspired by songwriters singers and composers who also arrange like Clare Fischer, Prince, Van Dyke Parks, Judee Sill and Mary Lou Williams. I guess I’ve absorbed my dense instrumentation styles from those folks. Also my favorite bands are XTC and the Beach Boys and there are nonstop sounds on their albums to the extent where you don’t know what to listen to and I love that!!!! GM: Describe your music using 3 emojis or less. EM: I do not have a smartphone, and I would feel disingenuous to be like “these are 3 I’m really familiar with” but i am familiar with that lil frog
guy, so I’m going with three of those frog guys. GM: Do you have any plans for tour? EM: A new russ live band is forming, and we will be touring the east coast this summer with the mayor of power pop Richard Album from Chicago. GM: What are your top 3 songs you can’t stop listening too at the moment? EM: Mountains by Prince, Don’t You Wanna Know What’s Wrong by Field Music and a tie between Escapade by Janet Jackson and We’re All Light by XTC. GM: Is that cat you always post on fb (lucy) your cat? I would love to know more about her. Thanks. EM: Lucy, loo, luce, lucille. She is my beautiful little marshmallow of a cat. She constantly rubs up against you and likes to drool and have her belly rubbed. She is essentially a puppy, and I love her.
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TIME TO DIE By Bruce Hamilton
I’m running on the treadmill to Dopethrone, the seminal album from Electric Wizard, and I feel defeated. Dopethrone was released in the year 2000, and seminal albums cannot be released in a year that begins with 2. Genre-defining albums are never remotely recent. I was six years old when that album came out (an appropriate age, given the album’s content), which feels a little too recent for my liking. There is absolutely no way that I was reading Mr. Popper’s Penguins while three weirdoes finished up their magnum opus across the pond. I increase the speed of the treadmill, little by little. I haven’t been to the gym in weeks. The tiny clock on the treadmill says I’ve been running for six minutes. What is the tiny clock on the treadmill called? I don’t think of it as a timer, although it is quite literally timing my run. Timers belong on appliances that cook things for you. I will accept that I am the thing being cooked in this scenario. Dopethrone roars on. I can’t help but think about how their frontman said the album was written and recorded in especially extreme conditions, amidst interpersonal tension and drug addictions (death threats and living with speed dealers). It makes sense. Come My Fanatics…, the release that preceded Dopethrone, made it sound like
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the band was having a good time, generally speaking. Come My Fanatics… is grabbing a burrito and plopping down on the couch after a run; Dopethrone is firing up the treadmill. Nobody else in this gym looks bothered, or even slightly inconvenienced, despite the puddles of sweat that tell me the room is full of pain. In ten minutes, I’ve coughed four times and snorted once (from increasing the treadmill speed to 6.6 miles per hour, which is 2.4 miles per hour faster than the one other funny speed). College students run, jump, lift, crunch, and bike their way through another Wednesday night. It feels good to be a part of something.
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2/29/16 By Avery Piper god fell in love but he didn’t think about it. until the night was over and the sun rose. he had a memory of the love the night before. and he remembered the pleasure of the kiss. but the memory began to burn when it was recalled. and he became addicted to the memory. one night his lover was busy. and he began to fear that his lover didn’t love him. he set himself aflame and broke his lover’s heart. and the memory burns him forever.
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DUSTIN DACIER 8
43 YEARS LATER AND THE GOVERNMENT STILL HAS TO DEBATE IF I CAN CONTROL MY OWN BODY By Deanna Castello
Remember in your high school politics class when you learned about historic or “landmark” Supreme Court cases in the United States? Roe v. Wade (1973) definitely should have come up, but for those who don’t know, it pretty much ruled that women have a certain right to privacy and more specifically, a right to abortion services. Great! Issue resolved! Abortions for all who need one!! Right? Well, not necessarily, because on Wednesday, March 2nd, me and hundreds of others flocked to the steps of the Supreme Court to rally together as the current Justices began initial debate on a new case regarding the accessibility of abortion services and women’s health care clinics in the state of Texas. Older women came up to me and my friends and applauded our dedication to the cause but also apologized, saying that we shouldn’t have needed to be there. Currently, Texas has some of the strictest (and most absurd) laws concerning abortions in this country. Most notable are the restrictions under the HB 2 bill, created and enacted in the summer of 2013. Through the passing of this bill, abortion services were banned for people past the 20-week post-fertilization mark. In most circumstanc9
es, the clinics and their admitting privileges were given strict guidelines for operations; sadly, many of these restrictions caused a majority of clinics to close since the summer that HB 2 was signed into law. Because of the lack of abortion services now offered in Texas, and with people as young as thirteen in desperate need of safe abortions (which are scarce and hard to come by), a new case has been brought back to the Supreme Court. Forty-three years later, all of this should have been essentially resolved. Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt was a case filed in April of 2014, with oral discussions of it now happening at the federal level. It’s challenging two provisions of HB 2, in order to keep and re-open clinics within the state of Texas. This case is trying to revisit these laws, which dwindled the 36 operating clinics in 2013 to only 10 clinics to accommodate over 5 million people of that state who are both classified as female and of reproductive age by the United States Census Bureau. This is why me and many others traveled to Washington DC on that Wednesday: because not only the women, but the people of Texas are being mistreated through these HB 2 laws. The majority of arguments against contraceptive rights that I
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have read about are religious in nature, driven by opinions and views of those who believe the use of contraceptive goes against the will of their higher power. The fact that, in many cases, the people on this end are winning and implementing harsh restrictions is sickening. As a woman with the ability to get pregnant, I should be able to choose a form of contraception to prevent that from happening in any state I live in, just as a man can opt for a vasectomy under most health care plans in most places. For generations, many officials in our government have believed they can control what a woman does with her body and with her pregnancies. This idea needs to end, as many women who turn to contraception or abortions are not ready to be a parent, for many reasons either economically, socially, or just personally. This is not just a personal view of mine, as I conversed with many people at the Supreme Court rally whose opinions aligned with mine. Everyone should have the right to chose regarding their bodies, and in terms of abortions and contraception many more need to realize, that while it is a major issue for cis women, it isn’t strictly an issue of cis women. Many non-binary and transgender people are affected when contraceptive rights are taken away. With an issue that affects so many, it’s sad to see it dragged out for so long. Hopefully the Supreme Court will see this and support one’s right 11
to privacy, and with that, maybe the states with restrictions on clinics will follow suit. But until then, this is a real, appalling, and serious issue. No matter what your gender, age or sexuality is, these health clinics offer an array of services that can help you in some way. So until our right to privacy is fully upheld and our right to receive necessary medical treatments is protected, I urge you to go out, get educated on these issues, and get mad.
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PIECES OF CLOTHING FROM MY CLOSET AND MY MEMORIES ASSOCIATED WITH EACH by Winnie McNally V Neck KISS T-shirt Worn while my high school boyfriend felt my boobs for the first time. Under the shirt. Cropped Tank Top Printed With King Tut’s Face Worn to see Sleigh Bells at Terminal 5. My best friend and I were up against the barricades, and the tissue-thin material did nothing to protect my ribs from getting bruised as shit. The show was awesome. Cropped Tank Top Printed With Drawings of Cats Purchased at American Apparel as my boyfriend and I journeyed through New Haven, desperate to find the Connecticut Shake Shack I’d heard rumors of. We never found it. T-Shirt Printed With The Dude From The Big Lebowski The absolute coolest thing I owned in high school. I wore it as often as I could and felt very indie and cultured. Several dudes complimented me on it and I loved it. Black Disco Pants From American Apparel Worn to a karaoke party in K-town the spring of freshman year. We snuck vodka in to pour into our pitchers of Coke, and it was one of my first times getting drunk. I sang Party In The U.S.A., wore my hair in baby buns and took an expensive cab ride home, feeling particularly giddy in the backseat. Maroon Oversized Velvet Blazer Purchased at a Goodwill in Orlando, Florida. At the time, it seemed painfully hip to own a vintage Hugh Hefner-type jacket that I’d bought while on a road trip with my friends. I’ve worn it maybe twice. High-Waisted Sunflower Print Shorts Worn on the subway one hot summer day when a nasty-smelling guy pressed his boner against me. The last time I wore shorts in public. White Crochet Maxidress Worn to see Purity Ring at Terminal 5. My best friend and I smoked weed in the little park by the river beforehand, and I felt like an ethereal, glimmering forest creature throughout the night.
Cropped Allapartus T-shirt Worn while out to lunch with my parents at a Brazilian restaurant last summer. They were convinced that Scarlett Johansson was sitting behind me, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn around and stare. This is closest I’ve gotten to a celebrity encounter. Black Flower-Printed Kimono Worn while nursing the worst hangover of my life. Unfortunately, I had a shift at my receptionist job that morning, and I spent four hours sitting at my desk willing myself not to hurl. The kimono was the closest thing I had to pajamas that was still socially acceptable to wear in public, and to this day I associate it with feeling crabby and vaguely flu-like.
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