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Wilmington, North Carolina once had a thriving Black middle class and an elected interracial government. In 1898 white supremacists used violence to overthrow that government, kill Black residents and drive many others from the city.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
 Cover of issue 2, drawn by Nick Bougas | |
| Editor | |
|---|---|
| Categories | Social pathology |
| Frequency | Annual |
| Circulation | 13,000 |
| Publisher |
|
| First issue | 1991 |
| Final issue | 1994 |
| Country | United States |
| Based in | Los Angeles, Portland |
| Language | English |
| OCLC | 32916986 |
Answer Me! (typically rendered ANSWER Me!) was an American magazine edited by Jim Goad and Debbie Goad and published between 1991 and 1994. It focused on the social pathologies of interest to the couple. It printed only 4 issues, the first three being collected into a book, Answer Me! The First Three, published in 1994 by AK Press. Issue 4 of Answer Me! was the subject of a high-profile obscenity trial against two booksellers whose magazine store carried the issue.
The magazine was created, published, and edited by Jim Goad and Debbie Goad, then a couple, originally based in Los Angeles, later moving to Portland, Oregon.[1][2] The couple later divorced.[3]
Jim Goad had previously written for Los Angeles music magazines, as well as Playboy and Details; he was criticized for being insufficiently objective in his journalism, leading to the creation of Answer Me!, a publication aiming to lack any objectivity.[4]
The magazine was anti-"political correctness", and had a misanthropic ideology.[2][5] It focused on morbid and strange topics, including serial killers, mass murderers, sexual perversion, and general bizarre behavior.[4] It described its goal as to "inspire hatred both in those who love it and those who hate it".[4]
The magazine featured artistic contributions from a variety of artists, including cartoonist Nick Bougas, Coop, Frank Kozik, and Jim Blanchard.[6][7] It was originally published in Los Angeles, later in Portland.[2] There were no advertisements included in Answer Me![6] It was one of several "hate literature zines" of the time.[4]
The title of the magazine, Answer Me!, relates to a question asked by Jim Goad in the first issue: "why are you so fucking stupid?"[6]
Released 31 October 1991.
Several articles in the first issue were re-edited versions of pieces Jim Goad had written for other publications, only to have them rejected.[4]
Featured interviews with Russ Meyer, Timothy Leary, Holly Woodlawn, Kid Frost, Public Enemy, Iceberg Slim, and pieces on Bakersfield, California, Sunset Boulevard, masturbation in literature, and Twelve-Step programs.[6]
Released 17 July 1992.
Featured Anton LaVey, David Duke, Al Goldstein, El Duce of The Mentors, the Geto Boys, Ray Dennis Steckler, 100 serial killers and mass murderers, Vietnamese gangs, and Mexican murder magazines.[6]
Released 19 July 1993.
Featured Jack Kevorkian, Al Sharpton, NAMBLA, the Kids of Widney High, Boyd Rice, Suzanne Muldowney, 100 suicides, guns, Andrei Chikatilo, pedophilia in Steven Spielberg's work, "Mexican deformity comics" (the series Casos de Insolito), paintings and drawings by murderers collected by Nick Bougas, and a prank call to a suicide hotline.[6]
The editorial is signed in Jim Goad's blood.[1]
Released 1994.
Known as "The Rape Issue",[8][9] features a teen-mag-style interview with Richard Ramirez, Donny the Punk, work by Molly Kiely, Boyd Rice, Randall Phillip, Shaun Partridge, Adam Parfrey (on Andrea Dworkin), Peter Sotos (with illustrations by Trevor Brown), pieces on amputation, the police, racist country & western music, and Chocolate Impulse.
The magazine ceased after this issue.[1][5]
Chocolate Impulse was a "hoax zine" created by Jim and Debbie Goad during their operation of Answer Me![8][9] Wanting to address the negative feedback they'd received from the zine community, the Goads wrote and distributed a zine, including a series of pseudonymous screed against themselves (in which they claimed to be the lesbian couple "Valerie Chocolate" and "Faith Impulse"), going so far as to set up a fake address for it in Kentucky.[8][10][11] The zine received some positive response from the publishers of Feminist Baseball and other zines that had negatively reviewed the Goads.[citation needed] Factsheet Five described it as "strange" and "definitely not for the squeamish".[11] In issue #4 of Answer Me!, Jim Goad revealed the prank and insulted those who had taken the bait.[8][9]
The first three issues (which had gone almost immediately out of print) were collected as Answer Me! The First Three, published in 1994 by AK Press. They contain autobiographical introductory pieces by Debbie and Jim.[12][13][14] AK Press refused to distribute the fourth issue.[1] It was reissued, along with 60 pages of new material, by Scapegoat Publishing (ISBN 0-9764035-3-6) in 2006. He later released a new collection, ANSWER Me!: All Four Issues.[15]
In 1995, a complaint about issue no. 4 being sold at a Bellingham, Washington magazine store known as The Newsstand resulted in owners Ira Stohl and Kristina Hjelsand being tried on charges of distribution of obscenity.[16] Charged with one felony count of promoting pornography, they faced a maximum sentence of five years in jail and a $10,000 fine. The defendants were found not guilty.[3][17][18] A later lawsuit against the City of Bellingham by Stohl and Hjelsand resulted in the City paying $1.3 million to the plaintiffs on the grounds of violation of First Amendment rights and infliction of emotional distress.[18][19] Goad expressed pleasure at the suit, saying it would only make him more famous.[20]
Factsheet Five described it as "the greatest zine on the planet".[4] Suroosh Alvi described it as "intelligently written and sinfully alluring", considering it to be exceptional among magazines focusing on the subject matter for the high quality of its writing and production, writing that it could "easily take on the best of the mainstream press".[4] The Guardian said of Answer Me! that "somewhere amidst this often brutal theatre of hate there is, bizarrely, romance. In their played-up whitetrash domesticity the Goads are the Richard and Judy of psychotics and sociopaths".[1] A 1993 review in Maximum Rocknroll praised the magazine and Goad's writing for it.[6]
Writing in 2015, BuzzFeed News described it as a "proto-Vice" magazine.[2] Spin magazine retrospectively considered it one of the 50 worst moments of the 1990s, calling it a "fuck-your-feelings, catch-all zine" with an "undeniably ferocious vigor"; they wrote that it "seemed more like a proto-Tea Party circle jerk than some noble attack on 'good taste.'"[5]
The magazine was found in the possession of a man who attempted to kill Bill Clinton.[20]
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Answer Me! (typically rendered ANSWER Me!) was an American magazine edited by Jim Goad and Debbie Goad and published between 1991 and 1994. It focused on the social pathologies of interest to the couple. It printed only 4 issues, the first three being collected into a book, Answer Me! The First Three, published in 1994 by AK Press. Issue 4 of Answer Me! was the subject of a high-profile obscenity trial against two booksellers whose magazine store carried the issue.
"Answer Me" is a popular song, originally titled "Mütterlein", with German lyrics by Gerhard Winkler and Fred Rauch. "Mütterlein" was published on 19 April 1952. English lyrics were written by Carl Sigman, and the song was published as "Answer Me" in New York on 13 October 1953. Contemporary recordings of the English lyric by Frankie Laine and David Whitfield both topped the UK Singles Chart in 1953.
Answer Me This! is a comedy podcast by Helen Zaltzman and Olly Mann first broadcast in 2007, in which they answer questions submitted by the general public. It was one of the first independent British podcasts to gain success, and led to both Zaltzman and Mann establishing careers as professional podcasters. Initially produced weekly, the podcast became fortnightly in January 2014 and then monthly in December 2016. The series originally ended with its 400th episode on 5 August 2021, but returned for one further episode in 2023. On 2 January 2025 — the 18th 'birthday' of the podcast — it was announced that Answer Me This! would return, at first for three new episodes over three months at the start of the year. However, the return was soon thereafter expanded indefinitely to a monthly show. Answer Me This! was nominated for Sony Radio Academy Awards in 2009, 2010 and 2011, in the category "Best Internet Programme"; in 2010, the podcast won the silver award and in 2011, it won the gold award. In 2021 the podcast received a special Gold Award from the British Podcast Awards, honouring its status in the development of British podcasting.
"Don't Answer Me" is a 1984 song by the Alan Parsons Project from the album Ammonia Avenue. It reached number 15 on the Billboard charts in the United States and was the final Billboard Top 20 hit for the group. It also reached number 58 in the United Kingdom, the group's highest chart placing in their native country. The music video was rendered in comic book style, with art and animation by Michael Kaluta.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →The Greenwood District.
