Once upon a time, in a land called the Washington DC suburbs, there was
a punk rock group house called Cambodia. In it lived a girl named Amelia
G who had recently graduated from Wesleyan University with Honors into
one of the worst recessions this country has ever had. Amelia was pretty
mad that things had not worked out the way she had been told they would.
But it was pretty funny how things worked out. If you looked at it just
right. And had a pretty pitch black sense of humor.
Over time, Cambodia slept somewhere between four and fifteen surly
individuals with unusual haircuts. The lease always said four. The name
of the house was a reference to the Dead Kennedys. Not that the various
group houses in the DC area which tried to name themselves competitively
seemed to get that.
Amelia's parents once told her that Cambodia was like Andy Warhol's
Factory. They meant that it was full of seemingly fabulous people who
were actually totally useless. But Amelia heard artistic incubator and
set about creating venues for her talented friends to be exposed.
The first zine was BLT. Black Leather Times. It was launched Halloween
of 1990. It quickly found its voice as an antisocial punk rock little
humor zine. It was absolutely fearless and fucking hysterical. Each
issue featured hostile yet funny opinion columns, sarcastic quizzes and
witty editorials. A new BLT was generally created each time the crew was
going to a special event. At the time, this meant CastleCon, EveCon,
BaltiCon, DragonCon, and of course Cambodia house parties. Somewhere
between five hundred and three thousand freebie copies of each issue
were also given away at stores like Smash and Commander Salamander and
Night Dreams and clubs like The 9:30 and Trax and The Roxy. Yes, the BLT
crew were dorks, but they were snappily-dressed dorks with bad attitudes
and good taste in music.
At first, BLT looked like a lot of other photocopies punk rock zines of
the time. But then Forrest Black took on the art director mantle and the
zine started looking as good as its creators. Initially there was
usually a Halloween issue and a Valentine's Day issue every year and
eventually there was more or less a theme for every issue. Some past
themes have included grouphouse living, casual sex, punk rock success,
travel, cannibalism and cuisine, conventions, murder, and New Year's
resolutions.
Over time, the roster of contributors to BLT has changed as various
individuals mainstreamed or got addicted to meth, but the spirit remains
the same. And that spirit can be summed up with the following words:
Ha, ha. That's funny. Wait, you don't mean me do you? Fuck you.
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