Freaks, Yes. But Geeks?

What more do we need to tell you? The Stumptown Comics Fest is happening right now, as we speak, at the DoubleTree Hotel, Lloyd Center, blah blah blah. You’re either plugged into this or you couldn’t care less, but if you need it and you forgot about it, we’re here to remind you. Personally, we prefer the more Superhero-y comics fests to the Indie-ish Comics fests because, well, the more commercial ones are dorkier and the Indie ones are, well, actually cooler. Not that we don’t think cool is cool, because it is cool and we believe it to be so, but when it comes to comics the last thing we want is cool. We want the opposite of cool. We want what geeks want. We want to be geeks in a world where there is no cool. We want you to name all of the original Marauders, you know, the ones who were responsible for the Mutant Massacre back in ‘86.

That said, we have no problem with today (and tomorrow’s) comic fest, and in fact are madly in love with some of the creators who will be there. Peter Bagge. Mike Allred. Ted Rall. Matt Wagner! These people make great, great comics, comics we love, comics that keep us alive. It’s the fans we worry about. No snobs, please! Just dorks! AND NO MORE FUCKING SCRATCHY STYLE NON-GOOD INDIE CRAP COMICS ABOUT EX-GIRLFRIENDS SAVE IT FOR YOUR SHITTY ZINE OK?

Ladies and gentlemen, may we present the Enemy: Jeffrey “I Am Ruining Comics” Brown:

Kids, do not try this at home, or at a coffee shop where some cute girl with cat-eye glasses is checking you out as you do this in your notebook. Don’t try this at all. Thank you. Signed, Your only friends who are constantly thinking in your best interests, Fort Saint Davids and the Daily Miltonian.

Growing Up

Hard to believe it, but your Daily Miltonian is about to turn one year old. As legend has it, the Daily Miltonian was born on October 18th, 2006, as a kind of content/bulletin stopgap for the now-defunct (for now) True Jersey Novel/Magazine/Lifestyle website, which had gone on hiatus at the time. Both the True Jersey site and the original Miltonian were created by the original Fort Saint Davids Team, Erik Bader and Alexander Zahradnik, and their story and the story of True Jersey can be read about in this Philadelphia City Paper article.

The first post was written on a bright, autumnal morning in a Fishtown apartment (this was before the FSD Philly Offices opened proper) on October 18th, 2006, and consisted of a short report regarding a possible South Street Revival, spearheaded by some of the cats down there who were trying to bring True Vibes back to the Strip. We’re talking the likes of Crooks, Squid, Cali, Josh Agran…even Patricio and Burger Boy, who later fell into the mix.

Here’s author Erik Bader, on this monumental first post:

EB: The truth was I wasn’t sure if there was a South Street revival happening or not. At the time I was going through an awful breakup, really the worst breakup of my life, and my ex and her brand-new boyfriend were to be seen crawling all over Fishtown and Northern Liberties, where I had been spending most of my time, so I moved my haunts down the road to new zones: South Street/Queen Village/Bella Vista/Italian Market. I was pretty much safe below Market, and that happened to be where Crooks lived, so I was spending a lot of time hanging with him, trying not to think about my otherwise terrible situation.

FSD: Crooks seemed to be a really good friend to you during those times.

EB: Oh no doubt. He still is. Out of all the Philly friends who still take the time to call me, keep in contact, Crooks is in the top. Good old Sarah is way up there, Burger Boy…Schwartz recently wrote me an actual pen and paper letter. Good people, and incidentally all of the people who were down there for what ended up being the South Street revival are the people who still keep in touch.

FSD: So there was a revival after all.

EB: I’d say so. Ground zero has to this one day — one of the first really crispybright autumn afternoons, and I’m walking down the Strip w./Crooks and Joey Sweeney rings me up and I tell him I’m just kicking it on the Strip and that we’re thinking of getting pizza at…I can’t remember the name of the place, it’s the one where you walk down the stairs…I wanna say it’s below Fat Tuesday? Anyhow it’s that pizza joint where everyone had a slice of pizza sometime in the 90’s and no one has been down there since but the place is still open and if you look down there still somehow seems to be customers in there. And Joey sounded real envious on the phone and why wouldn’t he. And that’s when it hit me that we were back, we were back on the Strip after all these years, and right then and there we ran into someone, maybe Adil, maybe Agnew, who knows, and it all felt like it just went full circle.

FSD: The Strip was back.

EB: Exactly. And maybe it never went away. We went away. But we were back, and yeah it felt good.

FSD: It’d be interested to talk to some of the other principal players, Crooks obviously, but maybe some of the more sideline guys like Patricio or even Cali.

EB: Patricio’s wine shop became a kind of focal point for the whole thing. Even in a post-cellphone/email world we still just converged on that place without any prior communications. Almost instinctual like. It was kinda beautiful. From there we might hit up the coffee shop next door…

FSD: Was this where the whole Yerba Mate thing started?

EB: No, credit where credit’s due, that was Ben and Sarah up in Fishtown, but that’s getting ahead of the story a bit. We did get Mate from that coffee shop on occasion, though.

FSD: Well without further ado, let’s take a look at the original article, shall we? The first ever piece of writing ever published on the Daily Miltonian.

EB: Yep yep. Here it is, enjoy.

September Scrapbook

Garrett.

Wolf Parade

Thermals

Okkervil River

Dirty Projectors

Yacht

Ghostface

Mattress

Smegma

Terror Class

Sara

Welcome Back, Heroes

September: Virgo birthdays, new leases, back to school clothes, returning thoughts of hot chocolate, and NEW TV.  Summer ended on Friday, Fall 1 began on Saturday, and this Monday night, it’s not football we’re rooting for, it’s Hiro.  Grab some rootbeer and a bucket of icecream, throw some popcorn in the microwave then sprinkle generously with parmesan cheese, put smothered nachos in the oven, whatever it takes to make this a party, invite over your usual crew and try to convince that New Autumn Crush to come over (you did make sure to lend your New Autumn Crush that Heroes Season 1 boxed set with ample time for your NAC to catch up, didn’t you?  Please tell me you did) because Television Seasons only start once and Heroes is starting NOW.

Alright, dim the lights people and shhhh no talking until commercial break.

Your Daily Poem Of The Week

“Generation”

by Rae Armantrout

We know the story. She turns
back to find her trail
devoured by birds.

The years; the
undergrowth

An Evening With The Daily Miltonian

 

The Daily Miltonian cordially invites you to spend some time with… well… us. Why? It’s because when we get nostalgic, we want to get nostalgic about you.

Matthew Korfhage and Erik Bader, Miltonians, will be reading from their works at the Someday Lounge tonight, Wednesday, starting at 9pm (sharp!). 125 NW 5th Street. Liquor will be served. Perhaps Erik will read from his novel. Perhaps not. No promises. But it will be exciting and heart-touching, both. Also ankle-grabby.

And have you heard of the Folk Implosion? There will be a folk injection. Promised.

Event organized by Phase One organizer Garett Strickland.

Daily Miltonian Presents: Get Into It!

Let the haters hate, and let those who love art — that is, Art so awesome and real that we can actually remove the capital A and just call it art once again — rejoice. This…is it a movie? An installation in your DVD player? Is it a lifestyle? It’s an awesome thing, is what it is, and the Daily Miltonian commands you: get into it!

The Liars have a new album and once again: who knew it would sound like this? Here at the Miltonian offices, we slap this puppy down on the turntable, drop the needle, and go ape. This one makes us want to buy root beer, uncap the root beer, head out into the drizzlygray afternoon with the root beer in hand, meet our friend on Burnside, and when our friend says “Burnside is not a great street. It’s big, it’s noisy, it’s not bike friendly, it’s–” we’ll say now now friend, calm down, and consider Burnside as a concept, like in the way we were discussing how Inland Empire is not so much of a movie as a…well you get what we’re saying, don’t you? What if Burnside wasn’t a street but something else? Would we judge it for it’s Not-So-Good-Streetness ever again? Of course not, my friend, because it’s no longer a street it’s…something else.

At which point our friend will look at us…or look at you, since she’s your friend
too, and will ask, nay, demand, a sip of our root beer. And who are any of us to deny her?

Get into root beer! Get thirsty for it, seek it out, and drink it.  Drink some, get more, drink again!  Root beer!  Oh yeah!  What are you waiting for, do it now!

Give A Hoot!

As you may have read, there is an owl in Forest Park that we sometimes visit. He’s our pal. His name his Julio. He’s always asleep. We thought: maybe he’s depressed? Then we realized, wait Julio is an owl, and owls sleep all day. So yesterday we visited Julio in the evening. And holy wow, not only is he wide awake: he ready to rock the fuck out. As in hooting. You hoot, he hoots. We hooted with him for, oh a half hour, maybe longer. Could he have hooted longer? Oh definitely. In fact, we’ll be the first to admit that Julio could easily outhoot us, hands (or claws) down, any day of the week. Next visit we’re going to work on our hoot harmonizing. Julio hits the B, we hit the B sharp, that kind of thing, you know. Music maaan, it’s for everyone.

Below is a very short movie we made. Click it and you can hear our friend hoot.

Your Daily Poem Of The Week, Sick With Flu And Fatalistic Edition

 

Dream Song 14

by John Berryman 

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatedly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored
means you have no

Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.

Has He Lost His Mind?

Instructions: call the most rabid comicbook fan you know. Tell him or her to come over to your place. Pull up an extra chair in front of the computer. Load this just-released trailer for the new Iron Man movie.

Watch trailer.

Look at your friend with wide, wild eyes.

High five.