Answer Me!: First Three Issues of Legendary Magazine

Rating:
Summary: Great!
Review: A compilation of the first three issues of the underground zine Answer Me! put out by Jim Goad and his now deceased wife Debbie. Interviews with subjects as diverse as Iceberg Slim, David Duke, Anton Lavey and Timothy Leary. Articles like the 100 most spectacular suicides, (which is at times quite hilariously written) going undercover at AA and NA meetings, serial killer profiles, (also made me laugh out loud) among lots of other interesting and diverse topics. The highlight for me though was the misanthropic, hateful rants dished out by the Goads. Further proving my theory that righteous hatred is a beautiful thing.

Rating:
Summary: Proof positve that the pen is mightier than the sword.
Review: Answer me is the most important (and entertaining) literature to come along in a long time. I think Jim Goad in my opinion is the most important (underated)literary iconoclast in our lifetime. If you are disenchanted with the so called " underground scene" but like the unhindered grit of (for lack of a better word) true alternative reading, look no further. This is the be all end all of all magazine or even 'zines that Answer me! often gets lumped into. The First Three came as a blessing because I had Issue #3 and was foaming at the mouth for more only to find out they were out of print. I would like to thank Jim & Debbie Goad for putting these much coveted issue and for just existing because believe it or not this mag changed and enligtened me. Long live the wrath of Goad!!!!!!!!! I would like to hear from others who have latest info on Answer me, or Goad related lit and info.

Rating:
Summary: How much Goad could Jim Goad goad if Jim Goad goaded goad?
Review: Answer: A lot. This pulp-paper reprint of the first three issues of Goad's inflammatory little literary grenade Answer ME! is indispensibly essential reading for anyone even remotely interested in underground-'zine literature. Goad isn't out to offend the nice, safe, prepackaged targets that most of his ilk (he would hate me for saying that) zoom in on: he's out to offend the very people who claim to be his peers. Which only makes sense: given the madman temper of his writing, he's best seen as a nut standing out in the middle of nowhere, shrieking at the top of his lungs. And we're all the better for it. If the book has a flaw, it's that the needle gets stuck in the same groove too often, and I wanted to see more of the interviews with eccentrics like Ray Dennis Steckler and Duce than more of Goad's one-on-one boiled-lead natterings. But as it is, there's still not nearly enough of him to go around, I guess.

Rating:
Summary: My goodness I think I wet my pants!
Review: I was in a comic store in San Francisco a few years ago when I picked up the first issue of Answer Me! It was hilarious. Now we've got all three issues under one cover! People have gone to jail over this stuff. Who else but Mr. Goad could pull off a magazine in which each issue addresses such hard-hitting topics as rape, mass and serial murder, and suicide, in such a wry, goofy, "let's not forget to laugh at ourselves, folks" manner? Nobody, I tell you!

Read it. Think about it. Then you will understand why you have no choice but to ... Answer Me!

Rating:
Summary: As far as this sort of thing goes, quite brilliant.
Review: My contact with punk and countercultural zines is pretty long-standing, and although my reading material these days is usually more Aeschylus than Henry Rollins' awe-inspiringly aweful CAPITAL LETTER poetry, I still have a taste for clever examples of the angry countercultural punk and reacting-against-punk genre. 'Answer Me' had the cleverest ridicule against punks that I have ever seen, yet was read by punks and others in that scene. It ridiculed the fatuous gratuitousness of the countercultural pose and it did it WELL. The writing was clear and sharp and dripping with hate. My brother, through his zine Glossolalia, has met and interviewed Jim Goad a number of times and has said "nice guy, but you wouldn't want to cross him," and I think with Answer Me we see less of the nice guy aspect. Goad does things I, at least, find morally questionable and in inexcusably bad taste, such as defend and publish someone who wrote child porn, on the basis of an adherence to free speech, but then again I wouldn't be a criminal lawyer either. Answer Me is funny, smart, and sharp, and although it is somewhat dated at this point, many of its arguments ring true still on the idiocy of the counterculture. (For more good writing on the stupidity present in AMerican late 20th century countercultures, I recommend the essay "Slouching Toward Bethlehem" by Joan Didion, which deals with the wretched excesses of the Haight Street scene of the late 1960s.)The only thing missing from all this, of course, is a positive example.

Rating:
Summary: Original, powerful, hilarious, essential.
Review: With essay titles such as "Babies are Dirty" and"Your Mother is a Whore," you can't go wrong. Most articlesare just rants which howl against Americana in all her glory, butthere are researched articles as well. Serial murderers and The Top 100 suicides are documented here with as much pathos and care as the Goad's can muster.

Currently Jim Goad is imprisoned for a charge unrelated to his writing, yet his essays were brought up as evidence to set his bond at an unheard of $760,000.

Buy the Book! _The Redneck Manifesto_ is another book of Goad's, which I can't recommend in good conscience. END