Opener
I Discovered a Dumpster Full of CREEM Magazines
I enjoy rummaging through the dumpster at my local recycling center for books and magazines. I use them for collage. Earlier this year, the dumpster contained boxes filled with hundreds of copies of an issue of CREEM.
I remember CREEM from the ’70s, but I was a child at the time and didn’t know the difference between ABBA and AC/DC. It was on newsstands in the '80s, but by then I had been abducted by skateboarding and punk rock, and thus CREEM, which seemed to feature David Lee Roth on the cover every other month, was of little interest to a stupid baby punker.
So I brought a dumpster copy home. I gathered it was sort of a “best of” edition filled with the magazine’s “greatest hits” from the ’70s. The first article I read was by a woman with a weird name: Jaan Uhelszki.
“Extended dance remix of ‘Jan’?” I wondered. “Jaaaaaaaaan,” I said out loud, trying to determine how long one should hold two a’s for.
In her 1975 article “I Dreamed I Was Onstage With KISS in My Maidenform Bra," Jaan had chosen the rather unusual angle for a story on KISS of being in KISS itself. “I don’t want to see the show,” she said to KISS’ management, “I want to be in it! ”
“What the hell?” I thought as I read. “You can’t do that. That’s absurd.”