Scam #5

Scam is the zine in which the Miami punk, Erica Dawn 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, 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.