Deb finally arrived, and we all helped move her into the front living room that was to be her space. It was nice to have a girlfriend to talk to and share things with. By this time, I had started reviewing demo cassettes for Maximum Rock n' Roll. I wanted to write for the magazine, but there was a pecking order that Tim had set up. Everyone who was new had to start reviewing the piles of demo cassettes that constantly were being sent into the magazine, so I got a grocery bag full of cassettes to bring home and sort through.
It actually sucked pretty bad. No offense but at that time, anyone with a boom box and a blank cassette could record their band practice and send it off as a "demo". There were a few worthwhile gems that popped up and were worth writing about, but for the most part it was an endless supply of poorly recorded songs sent in by hopeful bands wanting to be discovered.
Since I wasn't getting to do the type of writing I wanted to, I came up with the idea of starting my own fanzine. I asked Deb if she wanted to help me, and she enthusiastically agreed. I decided to call it Lint Fit, after a line in the Newhart show, where the handy man tells Bob about a customer having a lint-fit in his hotel room. I thought the name was hilarious, and Deb loved it, so we started working on the first issue right away. One of my favorite Seattle punk bands, The Derelicts, was coming to town to play, so I scheduled an interview with them to be the first feature of the new 'zine.
Now at that time, Rancid was just breaking, and of course, since the singer called himself Lint, everyone I told about the zine thought it was because I was a Rancid fan. I wasn't. They were ok, but I had been a fan of his first band, Operation Ivy, and I thought Rancid was too one-dimensional with their Clash wannabe persona and no sound of their own. It sort of irked me, but whatever. People were gonna think what they wanted.
That first issue came out, and while it wasn't that professional, I was really pleased with how well the Derelicts interview had come out. Somehow during the time of putting that first issue together, Deb and I started having some communication problems. She felt that she had put more effort into the magazine and wanted to take it over and kick me out. Its all a bit fuzzy now, but I remember being furious at the time. I had started it, it was MY idea, and she couldn't just kick me off my own creation!
She had got a job working at CD Presents by that time, and lo and behold, the bass player Mike of Half Life was working there. She being included with a cliquey group of punks and it seemed to give her confidence to assert herself. I didn't care that much, so I let her have it. I wasn't so tied to the whole thing anyway since I had been asked by Tim to start writing "real" reviews for MRR. I had also started DJing for them so I had a place to focus my creative energy.
Mike also was writing for MRR, and we bonded instantly because we were the only ones who really liked the whole Seattle "grunge" scene and bands that were exploding out of that city. By this time, Tim had opened the volunteer record store Epicenter and I started volunteering there as well. Mike also worked there, and our paths crossed repeatedly between the magazine, the record store and the various punk shows that were happening around the city.
He was handsome and gregarious, and very charming. I told him how Deb had turned me onto his band and how I had played them on my radio show. He was flattered but also a bit egotistical about the whole thing. Of course I would play his band, they were great weren't they? Since he had left Pittsburgh to move to SF, the band was on hiatus, and he, like myself was looking for a new place to focus his creative energy.
By this time, Harry had moved out of the MRR house. It had gotten uncomfortable for him there because of me. Tim didn't like the fact that Harry had a girlfriend, and he made both of us feel very uncomfortable with snide comments about us spending more time on each other than on the magazine. Harry found a room with another punk from Gilman, Brian, out near the ocean. It was in the outer Sunset district, only 8 blocks from the ocean, and very suburban feeling with little houses all crammed right next to each other, but free of much of the city chaos that drifted over living in the inner part of San Francisco.
They had a spare bedroom open, and were looking for a 3rd room mate. I was pretty unhappy living in the Mission District. It was tense, crowded, dirty, and several very frightening things had happened, including someone getting stabbed right outside my bedroom window. I had called the police, and they just laughed at me, and told me someone would come to take my statement. I had stayed crouched in fear in my bedroom, alone in the house waiting for the cops to come, but no one ever did. My car had been broken into repeatedly, and I found empty syrginges in the front passenger side one morning along with yet another broken window. Walking home at night from work was always like running a gauntlet, and I was starting to unravel a bit.
The rent in the little flat was great, but the tension I felt was unbearable. Deb and I were no longer getting along and I was starting to feel trapped. I had no intention of living with Harry, but the lure of a $300 room in a quieter more serene part of San Francisco was strong. So I gave Lance and Deb my notice and told Harry I would move in with him and Brian at the beginning of the next month.
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