Just in time for the Midwest Zine Fest, I feel that I should cover my experiences at the last zine fair I attended, the Allied Media Conference. AMC took place in June (13th-15th) at the Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. Being the bum that I am, I had no ride to get up there, and pretty much nothing to pander up there up to a week before the conference was actually supposed to start. I decided to turn my annoyance mode on and post to any zine-related site or community seeing if anyone had an extra seat to or from the festival. Lucky enough for me, two very generous (and awesome) couples were able to get me to and from Bowling Green safely. One couple, Kelly and Jamez (from Tomatoes = Love Distro, Do As I Say, Transcendence), e-mailed me a few days before the conference and said that they could make a deviation from their trip (they were coming in from the East Coast). Despite a great deal of problems, including a lack of desire on my parents� part to allow any strangers sanctuary in our house, Jamez and Kelly did get to crash at my house.

Getting there sometime early in the night, Kelly and Jamez and I were all sitting in our living room, the uncomfortable silence washing over us in waves. As we traded niceties, we gradually all became warmer to each other. In fact, I was so enthralled by the banter of Kelly and Jamez that I screwed up stapling of half the copies of InterStitial, a fact I only learned about after stapling them. For some reason, I had went and put all the pages out in an incorrect way, and while K,J, and I talked, just went on auto-pilot and stapled things at random. Finally getting the second half of the magazines done at about 2:30 in the morning, with Kelly and Jamez long in bed, I decided to crash and get some sleep for the long (3 hour) drive for the next day.

Now. Last years AMC/UPC I had went to with my girlfriend at the time, Alyson, and the tempatures forced us to scrap the plans of us staying for the weekend. Kelly, Jamez, and I started out relatively early in the morning, and the temperature was cool, the skies were beautiful, and the ride was astoundingly without any problems. Last year, the whole trip has its own share of problems, whether it be the attack of the cartop foam in Alyson�s car, the aforementioned heat wave (with humidity, it felt over 100 degrees), or the sheer lack of interest by Alyson to even do much of anything at the conference. The car trip up was all the more comfy because of Jamez� car, what They Might Be Giants call �Boat of Car�. Jamez� car is a Crown Vic that he calls Morgan Anne, and as we made our trip up to Bowling Green, it really felt that I made the trip in a recliner.

Getting into Bowling Green in the later afternoon, we screw around it for a while trying to find the building and parking lot. It didn�t help that all the signs that Clamor put up were no larger than a sheet of paper and had a low level of contrast, only really being noticed as one was going past them. Rolling into Olmscamp Hall at about 5:30, it gave us enough time to set up our table (we shared a table) and listen to the keynote speaker, noted interviewer and radio personality David Barsamian. I was really disappointed, expecting so much more from the speaker, and all of his speech was a character assassination on President Bush. Seriously folks, it will not benefit any movement just to attack one individual, instead of the problems that that one individual has made.

After Barsamian had finished speaking, we were given about a half-hour more to sit around and meet some of the other individuals who were tabling near us. Next to me was an individual artist who attended last years UPC (and who had much more traffic than I this year). I had came across his works before on the free table of the 2002 UPC, and since I was not that well versed in what he was trying to do, gave him a slightly low review. Exchanging the normal pleasantries, Jamez, Kelly, and I left to find our crash space at the local church. Now, when I say church it is probably misleading � this place was a very cool all-faith center that, for the weekend, held about 50 very cool zinesters and other media magnates.

In the all-faith center, I decided to go around and be a social butterfly, meeting some cool people, including buddies-for-a-weekend James and Laura, from the Wooden Shoe bookstore in Pennsylvania. Jamez and Kelly did their own thing, started addressing envelopes while I tried desperately to have any burst of inspiration. Needless to say, it just wasn�t my night for writing. However, I did end up playing with a bouncy ball for a few hours, so not all was lost. After the ball got boring, Laura and I borrowed James� van to see if the mall was still open, or if there might be something interesting to do in Bowling Green specifically. For those not familiar with the Bowling Green mall, it is probably the most pitiful mall that anyone will ever see. I cannot say what has happened with it in the year since I had been there, but last year, pretty much the only thing that I can remember the Bowling Green mall having was a half-closed down JCPenneys. It seemed almost like a chore for anyone to actually be at that mall; everyone had a dour look on their face, instead of the immense joy that most people (myself included) have going to a mall.

Since we were unable to find the mall this year, we decided that we would wait around until the one concert hall in town would open up for a AMC-sponsored concert, with Ted Leo (who I hadn�t heard of at the time) and Stylex (still have no real clue who they are). Walking around the town (which was pretty much dead besides the bar scene � no big help to two people under 21), Laura and I decided that we would just stand outside the venue, watching the bands via the side door that lead directly to the stage. While standing in the alley on the side of a venue is always fun, we grew tired quickly and Laura decided to go get cigarettes. The getting of cigarettes was fairly routine, but we were pulled over for Laura not turning the van�s lights on. Laura got zapped with a citation and about a $60 fine, which I hope she was able to weasel her way out of.

Going back to the all-faith center, we went our separate ways and I crashed alongside a very cute couple in Kelly and Jamez. We had staked out the organ-room upstairs, above the chapel, and no one came in that night to bother us. Even with just a sleeping back to protect my back against the extremely hard tile floors of the organ room, I crashed only a few minutes after I put my head to the pillow. It was only too short of a time before we had to get up and go get breakfast, but the small amount of sleep that I did get really revived me after coming off the 3 hour drive.

Part II to continue.