This zine is about something incredible. It is about a group of punks in SF stumbling upon an abandoned set of buildings and filling them full of beautiful murals...and then having shows inside...and then serving free food to those in need...for four months!!! Until they were shut-down and evicted from their squat. Here in interview format is the absolutely true story of what people can and will do to create the free and open artistic spaces they need. Read this zine and be inspired. Or at least enjoy a well-written zine of our people's history. Contributors include Iggy of Scam zine and Melissa of Inkling zine among many others.

Scam was always the zine in which the Miami punk, Erick Lyle, showed us examples of creative resistance and fun in a world run rotten with poverty and war. Whether it was handing out fake starbucks coupons for free coffee, dropping flyers on mall-goer's heads that say "aren't you glad this isn't a bomb?" or having punk shows in laundromats, Erick has shown us over the years that you can resist capitalism and have fun AND have a sense of humour at the same time. It's nine years later and this issue is no exception. This issue finds Erick, more than ever, preoccupied with the passage of time, in the form of obsessing and waxing poetic about the history and demise of one of the Mission's strangest and most beautiful corner stones, Hunt's Donuts. Imagine a place where you always look first when something is stolen from you to find a simple crook pawning it inside the donut shop, where "Open 25 hours" somehow makes sense, where you never imagine that the dream can come to an end. A fun little foray for those of us obsessed (or soon to be) with classic Bay Area history.

Scam was always the zine in which the Miami punk, Iggy, showed us examples of creative resistance and fun in a world run rotten with poverty and war. Whether it was handing out fake starbucks coupons for free coffee, dropping flyers on mall-goer's heads that say "aren't you glad this isn't a bomb?" or having punk shows in laundromats, Iggy has shown us over the years that you can resist capitalism and have fun AND have a sense of humour at the same time. It's almost six years later but this issue is no exception, except he no longer goes by the name Iggy. Instead his real name, Erick, is signed to this cut and paste gem. Now he seems, more than ever, preoccupied with the passage of time and articulating an affirmative vision of the type of society he'd like to live in and fight for. In his piece on reagan's death he writes "...I think my relief came from realizing that by the time reagan had actually died, my teenage rage had quit being the motivating factor in my life,...what keeps me going [now] is the sense of what I wish the world actually looked like." With age comes wisdom and a sense that Erick wants to fight for the things he's for and not just rage at the things he's against. He talks for public art, squats, free breakfast programs, illegal peace demos in san francisco, punk holidays (joey ramone day, in which people gather and do a secret santa exchange of mixtapes), a booklist and various interviews with community activists and artists that round out this hefty issue nicely. Erick asks "How did it happen that we went from non-stop fighting eviction and gentrification to fighting against the new president's vision of perpetual worldwide war, without even a slight break?" While marking the passage of time erick gives us inspiring examples of living defiantly in those times. (Chris Landry)

Scam #6 is a first-person travel essay about stencil art in Argentina! Erick has taken his chapter from the book Realizing the Impossible: Art Against Authority, and turned it into a zine making it more accessible for those not ready to take the leap of book-ownership. We're treated to the story of Buenos Aires, interviews with radical stencil artists, & the political motivations of street art in Argentina. After a serious economic collapse in 2001, as a result of borrowing from the IMF. Most street rioting ensued from all kinds of people and stencil art was used to spread messages.

This is a spot on punk-rock take on the traditional Mad Lib. I don't want to give away too much here, in fact I'll warn you that in order to explain the full genius of zine libs I'm gonna have to give some spoilers here. Ready? Are you sure? Okay. Here goes: "The Roadtrip" features the opening line: One time me and my friend wanted to go to *---(disease)---* Fest in *-----(city)------*. There's also Back in the Days, Punk Rock Date, The Black Out, and the Visitors about bad house guests. Universal themes explored! I'm waiting for a possible volume 2 since we've yet to see the greyhound ride mad lib. We can dream.