Californication
Issue 7. Summer of 1999
Just after graduating from high school Stewart and Bill put out an eclectic mix of articles on racism, marijuana legalization, music reviews, random conversation snippets, and an interview with ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren.
Bill and Stewart, (but especially Bill), were so excited that John Frusciante had rejoined the Red Hot Chili Peppers. This cannot be understated. The two
Tweed fellows purchased the new record the day it came out and named this issue after it. Then subsequently decided the album sucked in comparison to the Peppers’ previous work. It was too late, the issue was already printed.
The majority of printing was done at
AEI Logistics, Stewart’s worst summer job ever. He was working as an intern consultant for website development. In the summer of “99" everyone was on edge about the Y2K computer bug, a panic stemming from operating systems that recorded the year in two digits instead of four. The cubicles were high and mindless office drones omnipresent. Fortunately a photocopier on the second floor was largely unguarded. The day the fire alarm went off was especially lucrative.
That summer Stewart and Apirat finally met the
Poor Children in person during a trip to Brooklyn
NY. Polly, Carla, and Marisa met them in Washington Square and they quickly got comfortable—debating music, politics, and each other’s zines. That night everyone crashed on Gina’s floor. It was an amazing meeting of the minds.
On the second
Poor Children/
Tweed mash-up Stewart and Carla became very...friendly. The two started an emotionally-charged, and somewhat silly, long-distance relationship that would last through most of Stewart’s freshman year. Sometime later Marisa and Bill would get together as well. Two zines. Two cross-over relationships.
It was the summer that Napster blossomed. Stewart augmented his
VQF Radiohead-rarities with hundreds of
MP3 singles. He built a new computer for college outfitted with a
CD-burner, still a novelty for the time. This ended his career of downloading
VQF’s, running a line-out to the stereo, and recording mix tapes for friends. Yes. Mix cassette tapes.
That summer the future of
Tweed was up in the air as Stewart and Bill headed off to separate universities. Their source of hope? Email.
Issue Contents- Headlines
- Interesting Facts
- Review: Hypnotik
- The Affirmative Action Debate
- So-Called African American
- Chicas y Queso
- Marijuana
- Fairfield Cops
- American Myths
- Racist Faces
- Advertisements
- Perfection
- The Warrens Interview
- Caper’s Hacking Page
- Star Wars: Episode One
- The Final Say / Coming Next Issue
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