Lawrence.com

First entry in new series of reviews and ramblings by Jonathan HolleyOne of the great joys of working on the little magazine / zine / paper-based textual document that is [Johnny America][1] is the cosmos of goofiness, randomness, and general good-will through which zines orbit. My life has little in common with the punks of Ipswich, England who send me copies of Beat Motel, and I'll admit my musical tastes aren't inclined toward bands with names like MJ Hibbett & The Validators or Raw Poo, which they thoughtfully review — but I'm glad those reviews exist. That those records were played and thoughtfully considered, that those thoughts thoughts were typed up, printed on cheap newsprint, then stapled into a physical package that I can stick it my back pocket or leave at a coffee shop for some lucky random to find when I'm through reading their take on Lily Allen. And cheeky essays. And the comic asides.

[][2]Beat Motel has [a web presence too][2], of course, as does everyone and everything. As I type these words I look across the room at my neighbor's fat orange cat who wanders into my house from time to time. This cat is adroitly pressing his paws onto the human-sized keys of his anodized aluminum laptop. He is blogging about the cricket he just killed. I shot video of the battle on my cell phone, which he's asked permission to post on his blog. We transferred the footage to his computer wirelessly using Bluetooth technology, and he then added some rad ironic sparkle effects using iMovie. In his blog post he's going to casually mention how cute he is, I'm pretty sure — he always does. Looking at him knead-typing his next post, I notice a tiny scrap of leaf stuck on his furry his cat-paunch. He is awfully adorable, I admit. I think he's updating his Myspace profile in another browser tab as he blogs about the cricket, either that or Facebook — his screen's at an too acute angle so I can't be sure. Maybe he's adding something to his Amazon dot com wish list, which is displayed in the left sidebar of his blog. Beat Motel's web presence is approximately as advanced than my neighbor's cat's — that is, pretty high-tech: it's got a forum that lists the latest goings-on in the Ipswich punk scene. But the thing is, the web site is not the thing. The zine is the thing. And it's a Very Good Thing. It was a year ago that publisher Andrew Culture sent a copy of Beat Motel to the Johnny America Post Office Box with a barely legible note asking if we'd trade accept his publication in trade for an issue of ours. Of course, Andrew, of course, and we're so glad we did. [to be continued]

[1]: http://www.johnnyamerica.net [2]: http://www.beatmotel.co.uk