PART IDIOSYNCRATIC hard rock rag, part porn catalogue, US magazine POPSmear is one of the oddest publications to cross HP s path in quite a while.
Among its most prominent features this month are an in-depth report from the Adult Video News Awards ceremony in Las Vegas, and an article showing five different sex toys being tested by volunteers (the winner was the Brilliant Jelly Jewels Big Cock & Balls, Dildo Harness and Cuff, all of which were road-tested by a lesbian on her girlfriend). There s also a regular porn-video review column each issue, written by one Art Rambo.
The cover star is the notoriously weird actor Crispin Glover, who lives down to his lunatic reputation in his interview, while the main music piece is a four-sentence dialogue with John Lydon, who furiously hangs up on the journalist after complaining that the journo was half an hour late ringing him ( You listen to me, when you ve got the fuckin sheer audacity to talk to me like that, you can go fuck yourself. Bye-bye ).
Pride of place, though, goes to an advertisement taken out by the National Rifle Association of America, whose full-page spread illustration depicts Jesus wearing a bullet-belt and cradling a sniper s rifle.
If Jesus had a gun, reads the accompanying text, the Romans wouldn t have screwed with him. No sirree. If old Jesse-Bob had packed a piece, then he wouldn ta been nailed to that six-by-six like a helpless pile of chicken manure. He mighta taught Pilate a lesson or two about crime prevention. As a matter of fact, if all of the communistic (sic) fornicators in Washington would just let up, kindergartners would be allowed their God-given right in the Constitution to carry assault weapons to school. Then we could forever rid this great country of ours of all crime and those hordes of Godless undesirables too, for CHRIST S SAKE!!!
Jonathan O Brien