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Cometbus #53
COMETBUS #53
What Kerouac was to the Beat Generation, Aaron Cometbus is to the East Bay punk scene. Here is his well-loved zine. He shares this issue with Maddalena Polletta, a longtime cometbus contributor and old friend. Nate Powell returns with the stunning cover art. In this "Hole in the Wall," "Nine Months, After Diagnosis," "Bent Stories," "Adrift," "Old Immigrants," "A Visit with John Holmstrom," "Any Port in a Storm," more.
Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
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About the author
Aaron Cometbus
48 books165 followersAaron Elliott, better known as Aaron Cometbus, is a drummer, lyricist, self-described "punk anthropologist" and author of Cometbus, a seminal punk rock zine.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 22, 2017
It felt ridiculous to read the latest issue of Cometbus on a plane. While Aaron was re-counting bicycle and greyhound bus rides, I was hurtling through the air with simultaneous fatigue, boredom, stiffness, nervousness, and anticipation. Aaron wrote of satisfying walks and strong winds, while I endured recycled air, making my face feel both dry and greasy. Okay, I’m not really complaining about air travel to Houston (I would not have made it by land). But I felt a little ridiculous reading it nonetheless (but not as ridiculous as the author of the cover story of the latest Newsweek must feel. I spotted it on the empty seat across the aisle, next to a fellow traveler. It was titled, “America’s Back: The Remarkable Tale of Our Economic Turnaround”)! This traveling fellow was most noteworthy for his 30-second attention span, rotating between bouts of seemingly-engrossed reading between a seemingly endless supply of varied literature: New York Times, aforementioned Newsweek, dramatic-covered novel, “Sky Mall” by Delta Airlines, vegetarian cookbook...all interrupted by equally seemingly engrossed moments of shut-eye.
Me? I was reading Cometbus. Like Aaron, hopped up on coffee. Aaron was getting free rides from touring bands--I was getting a free ride from the government! The new Secretary of Labor appointed by Obama is shoring up the Department of Labor and the public’s image of it. I was on my way to join other labor activists to talk to the Department about workplace health and safety. The tales spun by Aaron and the other featured contributors recounted varying forms of bad health and unsafety: heartbreaks, parental loss, failed plans, drug addiction.... Another theme is an always palpable, and on occasion, explicit, tension between youth and age. Maddelena writes: “I do not want to be young. I want to be old and die with hollow bones.” Aaron writes: “Sitting in the shadows of the park, somewhere between old and young, filled with longing, pumped up on the promises and anger of punk but not sure where to put them, or even if they fit me anymore.”
Aaron writes in the introduction of his surprise at the return of the word “punk” to his zine. There’s an awesome interview with John Holmstrom, the founder of Punk magazine. And Aaron writes a hilarious review and appraisal of the NYC punk scene, based on a single show he attended and his pedestrian wanderings on a visit to the city:
“a slew of mostly local bands playing their hearts out with little chance of being immortalized on even a flimsy piece of fabric. Which is fine, for who really needs another Suck My Ass or Ugly Shithead shirt? Remember folks, not everyone can eye our expletives and recognize a band name.”
He also makes the poignant observation that punk may be (for the better) returning to its more eclectic roots. At the show, he observes,
“an odd couple rolled up outside ... One was swami-like in long, flowing robes, the other shirtless on rollerblades, looking like a crazy pigeon feeder from the park. No one in the room looked twice, as if to say, “If a swami and a pigeon-feeding guy aren’t punk, then who the hell is?’”
It reminds me of We Got the Neutron Bomb (see my review), in which the early L.A. punk scene is described as the “miscellaneous” category of weirdos who didn’t fit in, having no dominant sound or style yet.
My reading was interrupted by a little girl who joyously shouted out, “Open a window! Ready, go!” No takers. The man next to me finally found his groove--he settled on the dramatic-covered novel.
I really enjoyed the pieces by the guest contributors. Like a classic zine, indeed a classic Cometbus, but they added another dimension of emotion and experience. I love Maddelena Polletta’s story of riding a Greyhound through a blizzard with a screaming baby:
The bus driver pulls the bus to the side of the road ... ‘Lady,‘ he snarls, ‘if you do not stop your child crying I am putting you out of the bus by the side of the road right now‘ ... The mother responds in a somewhat stunned voice, ‘He is only two years old, you can’t stop a two-year-old from crying.”
Aaron, then joined by other riders, chime in to say that it isn’t bothering them, until, after the bus driver resumes driving, “From the back of the bus a clear voice rises and says, ‘How you gonna put a woman and a baby out onna highway inna blizzard at night?’”
It reminds me of an article by Darryl Lorenzo Wellington that I recently read in Dissent magazine: “To speak of a poetic collective force other than the espirit de corps today seems mystical, but I confess that I have felt “the spirit of the group” in fairly commonplace circumstances, a blurring of the importance or relevance of individual identity, while traveling Greyhound” (http://www.dissentmagazine.org/articl...)
Maddelena has another powerful piece in which an emotional bond develops from long-range correspondence between 2 strangers struggling with drug addiction and the loss of loved ones.
Well, what’ya know! It turns out that reading this zine has compelled me to write down some things. Like the way you know a great band by the compulsion it gives you to start a band, you know great writing when it compels you to put on paper your own.
Me? I was reading Cometbus. Like Aaron, hopped up on coffee. Aaron was getting free rides from touring bands--I was getting a free ride from the government! The new Secretary of Labor appointed by Obama is shoring up the Department of Labor and the public’s image of it. I was on my way to join other labor activists to talk to the Department about workplace health and safety. The tales spun by Aaron and the other featured contributors recounted varying forms of bad health and unsafety: heartbreaks, parental loss, failed plans, drug addiction.... Another theme is an always palpable, and on occasion, explicit, tension between youth and age. Maddelena writes: “I do not want to be young. I want to be old and die with hollow bones.” Aaron writes: “Sitting in the shadows of the park, somewhere between old and young, filled with longing, pumped up on the promises and anger of punk but not sure where to put them, or even if they fit me anymore.”
Aaron writes in the introduction of his surprise at the return of the word “punk” to his zine. There’s an awesome interview with John Holmstrom, the founder of Punk magazine. And Aaron writes a hilarious review and appraisal of the NYC punk scene, based on a single show he attended and his pedestrian wanderings on a visit to the city:
“a slew of mostly local bands playing their hearts out with little chance of being immortalized on even a flimsy piece of fabric. Which is fine, for who really needs another Suck My Ass or Ugly Shithead shirt? Remember folks, not everyone can eye our expletives and recognize a band name.”
He also makes the poignant observation that punk may be (for the better) returning to its more eclectic roots. At the show, he observes,
“an odd couple rolled up outside ... One was swami-like in long, flowing robes, the other shirtless on rollerblades, looking like a crazy pigeon feeder from the park. No one in the room looked twice, as if to say, “If a swami and a pigeon-feeding guy aren’t punk, then who the hell is?’”
It reminds me of We Got the Neutron Bomb (see my review), in which the early L.A. punk scene is described as the “miscellaneous” category of weirdos who didn’t fit in, having no dominant sound or style yet.
My reading was interrupted by a little girl who joyously shouted out, “Open a window! Ready, go!” No takers. The man next to me finally found his groove--he settled on the dramatic-covered novel.
I really enjoyed the pieces by the guest contributors. Like a classic zine, indeed a classic Cometbus, but they added another dimension of emotion and experience. I love Maddelena Polletta’s story of riding a Greyhound through a blizzard with a screaming baby:
The bus driver pulls the bus to the side of the road ... ‘Lady,‘ he snarls, ‘if you do not stop your child crying I am putting you out of the bus by the side of the road right now‘ ... The mother responds in a somewhat stunned voice, ‘He is only two years old, you can’t stop a two-year-old from crying.”
Aaron, then joined by other riders, chime in to say that it isn’t bothering them, until, after the bus driver resumes driving, “From the back of the bus a clear voice rises and says, ‘How you gonna put a woman and a baby out onna highway inna blizzard at night?’”
It reminds me of an article by Darryl Lorenzo Wellington that I recently read in Dissent magazine: “To speak of a poetic collective force other than the espirit de corps today seems mystical, but I confess that I have felt “the spirit of the group” in fairly commonplace circumstances, a blurring of the importance or relevance of individual identity, while traveling Greyhound” (http://www.dissentmagazine.org/articl...)
Maddelena has another powerful piece in which an emotional bond develops from long-range correspondence between 2 strangers struggling with drug addiction and the loss of loved ones.
Well, what’ya know! It turns out that reading this zine has compelled me to write down some things. Like the way you know a great band by the compulsion it gives you to start a band, you know great writing when it compels you to put on paper your own.
June 5, 2017
Cometbus is at his best writing about punk stuff and so there are some good stories here plus an interview with/history of John Holstrom of Punk magazine, but half of this is by another author whose style I wasn't into.
February 27, 2019
More great stories, not just from Aaron this time around. Cometbus makes me happy—even the sad stories.
June 2, 2023
Aaron Cometbus main competition has always been Al Burn Collector Burian. It's time to drop the gloves.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews