RU Sirius' Open Source History of Mondo 2000

RU Sirius (AKA Ken Goffman) was one of the guys behind Mondo 2000, the magazine that along with Wired helped conceptualize and catalyze digital culture. He's working on an "open source history" of how the mag came into being and it's rush to read, the sort of deep-tissue DIY remembrance that should make you want to go out and change the world:

I have moved from Brockport, New York to the San Francisco Bay Area (starting off in Berkeley) with a "note to self" in my pocket — the only thing I could write during several months of writer's block, after a briefly successful academic and small town rock and roll career as a writer of fiction… and writer and singer of song lyrics. The note contains my California to-do list: "Start the Neopsychedelic Wave. Start a Neopsychedelic band. Start a Neopsychedelic magazine."

Read the whole thing at the great site 10 Zen Monkeys.

Reason on Sirius, etc.

Comments

[Tim]

Never heard of him.

[?]

You're lucky. I'm always thankful for how un-Mondo 2000 the internet has turned out to be.

The web's Grandiose Burnout Age seemed like it last forever, until a soft distant chant came from beyond the eternal black Lovecraftian well we were all trapped inside?

Goatseeeeeeeee!
Tubgiiiiiiiiirl!

?and we remembered that life didn't have to be never-ending DoucheCon with thousands of indistinguishable stinky-ponytail assholes spitting organic Dorito-knockoff dust through the endlessly dropped names of the '60s monocultural "underground."

And it was good. In comparison. Because it was shit.

[Tim]

Wow, man. That's some great spite. My hat is off.

[Larry Edelstein]

Like Tim said. Nice playa-hating.

[SIV]

cent-man FTFW!

[?]

+would

[Chris]

Unrelated, but here's an article we've all been waiting for:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITI.....tml?hpt=T2

[Tim]

Good night Suki.

[ed]

I, too, have a "note to self" in my pocket: get toilet paper, pay phone bill, Yanks/Orioles @ 7.

[Warty]

Mondo Generator

[Warty]

A cooler Mondo Generator

[SIV]

Why do you think they call it dope?

RU Sirius1. Who are you voting for in November? Barack Obama. I could give 100 reasons, but I'll just say civil liberties. He's not perfect, and yes, he sold out on warrantless wiretapping, but on the whole, he's been better in this area than any presidential candidate in my voting lifetime.

[Jason S.]

From what I remember, the R.U. Sirius podcast featured some compelling interview thingamajigs with security guru Bruce Schneier and the Wikipedia guy, etc.

Plus, some of the women on the Mondo 2000 magazine covers were lovely.