Posted on: August 25, 2008 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Standing Behind Me #5 / :25 / $1 / Trade / 20 Pages / 1537 West Augusta Blvd #1, Chicago IL 60622 / [email protected] / http://www.beeffarm.org / 

Another set of anecdotes by Dave, Standing Behind Me is a little longer in narration than Sebrakakku. Dave pulls from events beyond just the current, and as such, paints a wide swath of information about who ey is ad why ey is currently ey. A large section of the zine goes into detail about Dave’s college career, a gradual realization that college and eir’s major were not what ey wanted. Right after that, we are taken back in time to Dave’s younger years, during High School and recollecting random facts about that period in eir’s live. What really is striking about Standing Behind Me is the utter lack of bullshit that Dave throws eir’s readers, especially during the piece “Trainscum”. Instead of making a destructive act (pouring out and then breaking a forty to remember eir’s friend Jim), Dave “threw it down – disgusted and sad. I was expecting to feel better after this weird tribute…But I still felt the same, overall.” I think, out of all the perzines that I’ve had the pleasure (and displeasure) of reading, that Dave’s hits me the hardest because it is so similar to my NeuFutur – I mean, the writing in Standing Behind Me is beyond excellent, smartly written but still colloquial, and is really down to earth. Instead of being a superhuman (like some of the events described by holier-than-thou zinesters), I can imagine myself in Dave’s shoes. Even if it is just text on a page, the events described in Standing Behind Me are vividly captured to the degree that I can play a mental movie just based on the old black-and-white.

Rating: 8.0/10

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