During the mid-1990's, I wrote music reviews for a local music rag named Lollipop. Since I always use pseudonyms for everything, I wrote under the moniker of "Smak" - if you read the Foetus or Crash Worship reviews, you may remember me. Two years after I started writing, I resigned, and while cleaning out my room I found the never-published resignation letter.

Not much has changed after all these years.

Update: Yeah, after writing this, I briefly wrote for them again. So sue me.

Dear Lollipop ed's:

Please consider this a letter of resignation from the magazine. I know it's been a long time coming, but it's something that I feel I must do. A lot has been bugging me about this occupation of living off of promo CD's, show passes, and occasional Ramen snacks, and it's time I let you know the reasons. Plus, this letter was your idea.

As everyone should know, but most don't, the function of every magazine like this one is to become consumerist propaganda. Arts magazines, from Rolling Stone to the shittiest Xeroxed cut-and-paste punk 'zine, has the same message: Buy what we're selling, and you'll become a better/hipper/punker person. And in an act of doublethink that would make Orwell blush, they actually make people pay money for it.

But, in truth, this issue bothers me very little anymore. There's more to it than that. Most of the reason I became involved in this world of confrontational music and bad hair days that people call "the underground," is - aside from a healthy dose of youthful alienation - a deliberate attempt not to adopt ANY ideological definitions, whether from high culture, pop culture, counterculture, or even from reactionaries. Instead, what I see around me is nothing more than competing herd mentalities dressed in outrageous clothing. The attitude that people shouldn't think alike has been supplanted by the attitude that everyone else is wrong. As a result, these vegetables-that-walk-like-men band together in subgroups, clutching their Sebadoh, Biohazzard, or Zorn bootlegs with all the self-righteous fury of a Klansman burning a cross, unaware that the moment any group becomes defined, it's worthless. Punkers, goths, indie rockers, or noise fans - what's the difference? You all get your identities from conformist definitions of fashion and musical taste. Free expression is thus reduced to empty sloganeering, borrowed phrases, and your ability to fit into a marketing niche. You're the ultimate hypocrites - sheep in wolves' clothing. I have a message for all of you: unless you have something new to say, or even something old presented in a novel way, then SHUT UP.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are quite a few people who have become disillusioned with what's out there, but use this as an excuse for self-righteousness of a different kind. You blindly strike out against what the underground has become, calling it "derivative," "mediocre," or - my personal favorite - "stupid." But when pressed to come up with anything original or creative, other than a useless "You Suck," you're completely mute. You have nothing to say, so you tear apart anyone who says anything. I hate you even more than the underground scene you despise. You've substituted the conformity of underground thought with NO thought. Instead of sheep in wolves' clothing, you're merely sheep. I have a message for you, too: you're not smarter, you're not better, and you're not wiser than them. All you are is a worthless asshole. So go away and turn into your idiot parents like you always knew you would.

So am I any different? Am I some Nietzschian ubermensch, with the brain the size of Jupiter and a cock to match? Of course not. Much of my time served at this mag has been spent shouting insults at people; in fact, I'm doing it right now. This letter is directed at least as much at me as anyone else. You at Lollipop have taken a lot of shit for my opinions, and for that you'll always be okay in my book. I MEAN that. The source of my frustration is that I don't really have a solution. If you try to do anything or support anything, you're put into a neat marketing cubbyhole. But I have to keep trying; not out of love nor hate, nor faith, but because if you don't, you're nothing.

I do know what I don't want to do. And that's to become an arbiter of musical taste, convincing the masses what to like as if my tastes were absolute. Any band that cares about its reviews should stop playing. Any music fan that can be influenced by my opinions is one I don't want to have anything in common with, musically or otherwise. Make up your own damn minds for a change.

Thanks for taking my crap. I'm outta here.