Punk Monk Press/Magazine

  --Tabetha P.

Nobody told me  when we adopted  Daisy  that 65% of dog  ownership  consists solely of  lugging around  someone else’s shit.    I guess dog ownership  is just like  anything else. -- Andre F. Peltier  

You started hanging out at the Storeroom in ‘94. It was a small, Seattle bar two blocks north of the Offramp with regular punk rock and grunge nights. Musicians flexed; you stage-dived from the bar. You’d never seen a jukebox with punk, grunge, metal, and grindcore, even Hank Williams for the after-hours party. Shep tended bar. He was muscular and tightly-wound.  Regular s said he was black belt; the minimum required for a punk club and after-hours speakeasy. You’d seen him throw out Nazis, gay-bashers, raving drunks and a woman who climbed on the bar to dance naked.  You figured  she was on ecstasy. After-hours the party moved upward and before long you were smoking pot in the penthouse. That’s where you met Phil, a punk-rock trombonist and gentle, true, creative soul. Three months later he overdosed in a closet. Flashback to Phil on the corner. He looked like an angel was about to arrive. That night Phil played punk trombone at the Offramp. Some flames burn brightest before they expi

The Poet Federico Lorca  on August 19th 1936  was taken to an olive grove outside Grenda and shot  With him was  a bullfighter an anarchist  and a schoolteacher all the best people  Their home would be destroyed their bodies never found but despite this  I am inclined to think it was the finest death there is  Because they were on the list  of those too thoughtful too transgressive  too inspiring  too gay  for fascism to exist So long as they lived  freedom of thought  of expression  of love  could never die  What an honor  to be one the list I hope one day I make enough noise to be added as well. -- Bill Weld