by Jan Bruun, artwork by Billy Spicer
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Jim Goad quotes:
«I have assault records in three states. My hatred is diamond-hard. It can stop bullets and cause earthquakes. Hatred is the air I breathe. It permeates every cell in my body. You can't wear it out. It'll never die. It watches you while you sleep. It confronts you around every corner. It chases you down like a running dog. My hatred is a thousand times more powerful than all your good intentions... I'm not puking out hate because I want to change things. I'm not trying to get you to think like me. I don't want to galvanize you and your friends into some collective blob. Get the point? I HATE you!»
«I asked Anton LaVey about why is it that the seeming psychos, the murderers and racists are the nicest people I've ever met. And he said it's because they don't spend all their psychic energy keeping down their real evil nature. They just wear it on their sleeve like a Nazi armband and get their tension out so they can afford to be nice. They're not posing as being Jesus Christ all the time.»
«We got sent this one magazine that said that "mathematics is politically incorrect." To say "Less than", "Greater than", or "Equal to" implies classism, implies racism... That's the level of insanity that this sort of line of thinking has reached.»
«The stuff me and Debbie do together, is the same sort of things me and the guys used to do when we were on acid. Putting on shoe polish mustaches and pretending we were Puerto Rican to try to pick up chicks in our Cadillac. Going to Cleveland for vacation. Fucking near the largest trash dump.»
«I'd rather die than put up with more shit than I can take.»
(Quotes from ANSWER Me! #2, Glossolalia #4, Warcom Gazette #8, Compulsion #2, Flipside #92)
The following interview was done right after the fourth and last issue of «Answer Me!» was put out, and is presented here for historical interest. It was printed in the italian mag HEALTER SKELTER and in the norwegian zine BOLT, both places with additional material. For info on Jim Goad's current condition, check out
Jim was let out of jail in october 2000. A chapter from his forthcomin autobiaography «Shit Magnet» is published in the Feral House book «Apocalypse Culture II». His book «The Redneck Manifesto» is still available and strongly recommended.
The couple Jim & Debbie Goad struck like a bomb in the zine world in '91, with the first issue of ANSWER Me! When I picked up the first two issues while travelling in California in the summer of '92 I was awestruck by the power and perfection of their work, and immediately called it the best magazine in the world. Many reviews and catalogues have done the same. The Goads are leaders of a new wave of «hate literature» that's been sweeping over the publishing world in the 90's, with zines like «FUCK», «Sewer Cunt», «Pretentios Shit», «Sepsis», «Parasite», «Murder Can Be Fun» and publishing houses like Amok and Feral House. ANSWER Me! stands out by being extreme in content and great-looking in the art/layout-department. It has up to 132 pages, and contains articles that demanded years of research.
Jim had been working as a freelance-journalist for years, writing for publications like Playboy and Details. But he was always enraged when the editors cut out the best parts of his articles, to make them more palatable to the drooling masses. In the end he was so fed up that he stopped writing for others, and started his own mag. Much of the first issue contained uncut versions of articles that had appeared elsewhere, in addition to stuff no mainstream editors would touch with a ten foot pole. In the first three issues (now sold out, but collected in a book by AK Press) there were interviews with Anton LaVey, David Duke (KKK-presidential candidate), Timothy Leary, Russ Meyer, El Duce (drunken, violent rocker in the GG Allin-vein), Al Goldstein («Screw»-publisher), suicide doctor Jack Kevorkian, Renato Corazza &endash; the NAMBLA-president (Nasty Asshole-Molestin' Before Legal Age...), Boyd Rice and others. They had an impressive hit-list of the «best» 100 serial killers of all time, and an equally great Top 100 Suicides. Also, lots of their trademark rants with titles like «Babies are Dirty», «The Family Must Be Eliminated», «I Hate Men», «I Hate Women», «I Hate Being a Jew» and «The Homeless Can Eat Shit». Most of the rants are written by Debbie, who seem to hate everone but her beloved husband Jim. And Jim seems to feel the same way about her. None of them came from very happy families. The Village Voice wrote this about Jims childhood in a '94 interview: «He was an accident; while still in the womb, his old man, an alcoholic plumber, punched his mom in the stomach; he remembers volatile arguments and glass from broken ashtrays raining down on him in the crib; he recalls watchung his dad, now dead, kick his sister in the mouth while she lay bleeding on the ground; his older brother was murdered &endash; stabbed 30 times &endash; in Paris in 1969.» Jim and Debbie met at a Johnny Thunders concert in New York in '86, and shortly after they married in Las Vegas.
Getting back to the chronology of events, the first 3 issues of ANSWER Me! were increasingly popular, and the print run was up to 13 000 for the 3rd issue. They got rave reviews everywhere, even in politically correct zines like Maximum Rock'n'Roll, who probably thought they were «kidding». To show that they weren't, they put out the 4th issue, the infamous rape issue, which caused a lot of controversy. It included rape-theme articles by Jim, Boyd Rice, Randall Philip, Peter Sotos and others. Also a rape board game drawn by Mike Diana, who was sentenced to psychiatric treatment, community work and to never draw again(!) in his home state Florida, for publishing his own zine «Boiled Angel».
What happened with those charges in Washington state, Jim?
- The owner Ira Stohl and his store manager Kristina Hjelsand of the Newstand International in Bellingham, WA were facing charges of «felony distribution of lewd material for profit» for carrying ANSWER Me! #4. They risked up to 5 years in prison and a $ 10 000 fine for selling 11 copies of the rape issue. The whole mess started when a female student bought it, showed it to one of her pussy-whipped male friends who took it to the local rape-crisis centre, which immediately went to the District Attorney. After a year of legal constipation, the case finally went to trial in January '96, and the verdict was not guilty.
- I'm not sure whether you heard of the Francisco Martin Duran case. He fired nearly thirty rounds at the White House last fall with a semiautomatic rifle. In his truck parked near the White House was a note which quoted this passage from ANSWER Me! #2: «Can you imagine a higher moral calling than to erase someone's dream with one bullet...?» In March '95 I was subpoenaed by the defense to testify in the trial, but Duran's lawyers ended up not calling me to testify.
- The latest media scandal involving the Goads, had to do with three self-admitted nazis (two girls and one boy) from England, who shot themselves in a suicide pact while travelling in the states. One of the girls, Jane Greenhow, had called the Goad house repeatedly in the days before the suicide, and she sent them money orders of $2100 &endash; her life savings -- in the mail just before killing herself. The Goads returned the money to her parents and Jim commented: - I'm very saddened that Jane seemed to be one of the readers that I would have actually liked had I gotten a chance to know her. As I said in ANSWER Me! #3, it's the nonsuicidal who make life unbearable.
After the 4th issue of ANSWER Me!, the Goads moved to Portland, Oregon. Jim quit working to devote all his time to writing and publishing. Jim has collaborated with Adam Parfrey, Boyd Rice and Shaun Partridge on two CDs: S.W.A.T.: «Deep Inside a Cop's Mind» (a tribute to cops &endash; «The only real people left» and The Boyd Rice Experience: «Hatesville» (hate rants set to soothing music).
How are the planned publications «Truckstud» and «Fabulous World of Schmockes» coming along, Jim?
- «Truckstud» is intended to be a reclamation of all things white trash. I have signed a book contract with St. Martin's Press to write two books. The first will be «Truckstud», but I changed the name to «Redneck». The second book will be a more graphics-intensive, encyclopedic treatment of white trash. «Fabulous World of Schmockes», Debbie's manifesto of feline supremacy, should be out sometime this year ('96?)
(Jim's book came out as «The Redneck Manifesto». Debbie never put out any of her own publications. Jim & Debbie later divorced, Jim went to jail for beating his psychotic girlfriend Anne «Sky» Ryan, and Debbie died of ovarian cancer.)
The writer Peter Sotos is infamous and formerly convicted of child pornography charges for putting out his sexually violent zine «Pure». I just read two issues of Peter Sotos's new zine «Parasite». It might be just me, but it reads as if he's switching back and forth between different realities/personalities... You're planning to publish his book «Tool»?
- «Tool» will be incorporated in a Peter Sotos anthology, along with the text from the first three issues of «Pure» and all issues of «Parasite». In my estimation, Peter Sotos is the most powerful writer alive. I wouldn't take the obvious risks I'm taking through publishing his work if I didn't believe in it as strongly as I do. I've never seen a name which elicits such a universally negative response, but I feel the problem is not with Sotos, it's with his critics. Most humans tend to hate those who've been able to wriggle free from the choking leash of social consciousness. Time will vindicate Peter Sotos. (The book was eventually called «Total Abuse». Since then, Peter Sotos has put out a whole bunch of other books, mostly thru the british publisher CREATION BOOKS http://www.creationbooks.com/.)
Have you ever met Sotos?
- I haven't met him in the flesh, but we've had quite a few phone conversations, and I'm always impresses by his politeness, intelligence, and great sense of humour.
Randall Philip is a enigmatic character putting out his hate-zine «FUCK» on paper and video, trying to gather an army of people that will kill for him. He has a piece in the ANSWER Me! rape issue, so I had to ask Jim what he thought of Philips and the «FUCK» zine...
- Randall, like Peter Sotos and the Goads, is doomed to be misunderstood by the dim cupcakes who populate the world. At its best, «FUCK» is astounding. Compared to ANSWER Me!, I'd say it focuses less on facts and more on theory. Randall is alovable cuckoo bird, a modern-day Edgar Bergen.
Will there be an ANSWER Me! #5? What will be in it?
- Issue 5 will focus on race, so I guess we'll all be in it. It's been put on hold for two or three years though, while I finish the two books. We're also going to release a two-hour video called «The Nigger Show». A friend of mine from college who got busted for doing his own cable-access show in Tucson, Arizona, is moving up to Portland and will be my co-star. We play two white guys whose girlfriends have both left them for black male lovers. As a result of the circumstances surrounding their romantic rejection, the protagonists become violently, wholeheartedly, and ineptly racist. They produce a mythical cable-access show (a show within a show, actually) called «The Nigger Show». Not satisfied with merely spewing agitprop &endash; and straying further into denial &endash; they convince themselves that their girlfriends didn't leave them at all, that they were instead sold into white slavery. So these guys put on blackface and drive into the black ghetto in search of vengeance. Through a series of pratfalls and fuckups, they start a global race war which they're powerless to stop. They retreat into the Oregon woods, where they live a survivalist-type existence and argue about the ethnic heritage of Bigfoot, who eventually stalks them.
( ANSWER Me! #5 never got done, and the video never materialized, since Jim's old mate turned out to be an intolerable drunk, who went out to drink every night, but never had the money to pay his rent on the room he rented at the Goad's place. After a few weeks, they had had enough, and threw him out.)
Why do you like Slade?
- Why do drivers slow down to look at roadkill? Because it exites something basic within them. Slade achieved the sound of Stonehenge without ever needing the frilly runic poo-poo of clumsy Led Zep lyricists. Slade understood and exploited the fascistic undertones of rock music better than most. And there's also something fascinating to me about their physical ugliness.
Timothy Leary seems to be the only fairly «humanitarian» person you've interviewed. Do you know if he reacted negatively after seeing the zine?
- I don't even know whether he ever saw it. I'd say that everyone we've interviewed has some quality which gives me some desperate flicker of hope for humanity &endash; or at least for the human race's capability of coughing up an interesting individual or so for every millionth person. There's something appealing about the unfettered obnoxiousness of the people we choose to interview which strikes me as more sincere and genuinely human than most of what passes for humanism.
Any views on the Oklahoma bombing and militias/survivalists in general?
- The bombing obviously wasn't successful, because we still have Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee Crosby. Militia members are sexy, if a little overweight. Maybe the government will finally take away our guns, so we can be as dull as the Europeans.
What's your thoughts on the Ebola virus?
- Ahh, Mother Ebola. The mother of this earth. Sweet, sweet Ebola. The Ebola virus and similar detergent products underpin what we've always said in ANSWER Me!: The best humanity can hope for is to be eventually crushed by nature.
