Dear Jeff,
I received your sample copy (#7) recently, and was enjoying most of the pieces until I got to “Whittling a Long Bow at Home.” That was the first red flag.
Nonetheless I forged onward, trying to shake it out like a centipede in a sleeping bag. Then I read “Yurt Buck,” and it dawned on me that OYB is just another pseudo-hip rag for sadistic rednecks.
If I had a dollar for every acre of wild habitat destroyed by hunters and their beer bottles and ORVs and noise pollution and so on, I would have enough money to buy an island. Then, just as in that old movie, I would invite hunters, equip them with antlers, and give them every chance their victims had as I hunt them down with a rifle.
With neither starvation or self-defense at issue, the only reason people kill animals is because it feels good or makes you feel ‘excited’ or ‘spazzed.’ Killing in this manner is the essence of sadism.
Why do ‘nature lovers’ always have to love nature to death?
Anyway, I changed my mind about subscribing. Your type of zine is not for me. I had to throw it in the trash because it’s not even recyclable (with that glue you use).
May you choke on your chewing tobacco when there’s no one around to perform the Heimlich.
—Christian Garton
PS: Any publication that lacks a sense of humor (i.e., no cartoons) deserves to fail.
Dear Christian:
Clever letter, but the fact that you insult me proves that you don’t have this sense of humor you talk so much about. Anyway, OYB happens to be so loaded with humor that it doesn’t always need comics. (See OYB back issues for unrivaled cartooning about biking, animals and the relationship between insects and dogmas.)
How old are you anyway?
OK, I’ll mow through your complaints and see if I can get through to you.
Fine if you don’t like hunters, but what does that have to do with the worth of my mag? (Of course it’s recyclable—maybe not 100% but gimme a break.) So, you never like anyone you disagree with? Don’t read a mag unless it’s all your way? Weird. OYB is neither pro- nor anti-hunting, as with every other subject we just tell it like it is. Not too many mags dare to be that good.
Since you hate hunters you must’ve researched the situation, that’s why I find it odd that you miss the tiny detail that hunters pay for and set aside from development more land than most any other group. So what’s this habitat destruction baloney? Hunters also finance much wildlife research (which often fixes things like wildlife diseases). But I don’t really care about that techy stuff either. It’s your lovely hate that’s so enchanting. I’m responding due to the offchance you sober up, change your mind and subscribe to OYB like you know you want to.
Tip: It always helps if you’re particular in your accusations. Show me where in my hunting stories that I destroy habitat with an ORV as you say hunters do? And I won’t do it anymore! (Maybe.) Why associate me with others anyway? Read the piece or don’t.
Here’s the poop: I’m sure hunters are bad-as bad as anyone else. But I can’t see them being any worse. If I hassle them, I might as well hassle surfers or birdwatchers driving their polluting cars hundreds of miles every weekend.
Why hassle ORVs? ORVs zoom around all year, not just during hunting season. And what’s all this habitat they wreck, acreagewise a trail isn’t that ruinous. I’ve never ORVed when I’ve hunted, nor do I see em out there. I see em in garages. When I’m afield, I really don’t see anyone. Not much trash either. No messed up habitat. (Logging? Subdivisions?) The most trash I see is alongside roads–littering committed by motorists in general, but it hasn’t seemed all that bad. Oh yeah, party places out in the vacant fields also get trashed, but that’s just youngsters. You’re probably a motorist. You might’ve been young once. So screw you! Festivals and mountain bike races seem to be just a couple things that I’ve seen truly shred the countryside. Actually, the new subdivisions around here have ripped off my stompin grounds worse than the wildest tree-hackin, trashin, bonfirin motocross yahoos we’ve ever had. Subs turn the outdoor scene to zero as far as humanoids are concerned (but funny how most other mammals adapt to them just fine). Anyway, generalizations are stupid so I’ll quit if you will.
How many zines do you see out there published by sadistic rednecks anyway? I haven’t seen hardly any. Hunting is scarcely mentioned in any zine anyway. Indeed I’ve seen thousands and never once a hunting story. –Which is why I publish em. Fishing, too! Zine firsts, get em here! Henry Miller said he wrote ‘that which is omitted from books.’ I like that.
I’d say ‘pseudo’ means ‘for appearances only.’ That’s what you see in OYB?
You also seem to be confused as to who you hate more: hunters or meateaters. You say something about starvation being one of the only legit reasons for killing something. Well, of course I hunt/eat meat so I won’t starve. I wear leather so my feet won’t freeze. What you’re upset about is that I don’t eat and wear **what you say I should**.
Say you change your mind sometime. Won’t you be embarrassed as to how you felt so free to harp? Just because presumption of license to be an idiot is a popular and pseudointellectually respectable fad doesn’t mean it’s right—and that you won’t feel the shame of it if you ever wise up (‘pseudo’ because it’s all part of a powergrab—nada to do with thought.) Don’t you think there’s just a little coincedence that so many anti-hunters and vegetarians happen to be college age city folk? Whoops, now I’m making it harder for you. Sorry. That’s just a little OYB training for ya: whenever you try these DIY things or read something new there’s a chance for anxiety or regret as your life is stretched and improved. Work thru it, dude. That’s what adventure is about!
Death of animals is tied somehow in everything we do in life. No one can hide from it. Round and round we go. I hunt to NOT get disconnected from life. I take responsibility for my meat and veggies. After all that work I appreciate the grocery store more! Hunting is food and ritual.
I try not do anything *just* to get excited or spazzed. Don’t know many adults who do. Real life is too risky. You could get hurt! Most fun or cool stuff is just pretend anyway. But hunting involves serious obligations that every hunter I know respects. —I *have* heard about arrested adolescence that cripples all types of people, but it’s a sad story we don’t want to pin to any one group. Your clever misreading of the obvious mood of the piece reveals the heart of a kneejerk. Excitement was one of the *effects* of shooting my deer, but it surely wasn’t a goal. The very next lines mention ‘quiet,’ ‘sober,’ and ‘serious business.’ C’mon, you gotta open your eyes a bit more or the main point just keeps passing you by. OYB isn’t a term paper to critique or a side to get on. OYB is training–toughen up!
You say ‘killing in this manner [for excitement] is the essence of sadism.’ Don’t be so quick to judge. You might get bit. I suspect that doing anything for reasons of excitement can quickly turn into sadism or masochism. When the fun wears off and one still persists, a twisting can occur. Ask a vegetarian marathon runner if he’s feeling pleasure or pain. Camoflaged love of pain is everywhere.
I think I relate to animals just fine–all us critters are somewhere on the Graduated Animal Scale. “Animals are people, too” whining misses the entire subtlety of life. Also, your presumption that you know whether or not game animals ‘have a chance’ when hunted and your confidence in knowing how important this is one way or another reveal a surprising disconnection with the subject and plenty of ulterior motives, like an itchin to judge and find fault. It’s fantasy and doesn’t work except around the backslapper’s table. C’mon, get real—send in that check!
You wonder why nature lovers love nature to death. Nature handles death just fine. We *naturally* handle death just fine. It’s these illusions we get into that mess us up. One of them being that Nature or Wilderness is separate from us. The loving-to-death syndrome is a result of greed, consumerism, and objectification–and it filters down to harm against nature wherever it occurs. When we treat nature or anything we ‘like’ as a thing to be experienced…we destroy it. That’s why eco-tourism is dangerous. That’s how bicycling as ‘recreation’ encourages driving. That’s how cross country skiers can use waxes that emit deadly smoke while being applied. No one is exempt from wrecking what they love when they pursue the thing they think they see. Ritualistic participation in mysteries helps keep us humble. –I’m more humble now that I’ve carried a 200-lb deer carcass a mile to my bloody redneck yurt. It’s a start.
You wouldn’t hate OYB if you didn’t love it so much. It’s a religious thing. The fear of the death of your preconceptions causes you to demonize those who disagree with you. Only those with no sense of humor refuse to be mellow about it and follow the pointing arrow wherever it might lead. A strong reaction is actually a good sign. -You’re one of my few hate letter writers, which is why I’m so worked up. How ’bout you?
I for one won’t pander to any mentality. I’ll keep running stories that I’m amazed by, stories that you won’t find anywhere else close to hand, and that describe something of life from the point of view of the writer, a human bean, a non-professional, someone who represents only themselves.
Re: your wish for OYB to fail. Heck, I even get lots of subs from the web site lurkers: they can get it for free, but they choose to support. Hey, I’m slow, but I’ll keep standin up for those folk!
Note that I haven’t mentioned your cutesy deathcurse. I know you’re probably packing as you read this to head over to join the fun in Bosnia with your other buddies who wish for the death of others.
Best wishes for your quick recovery, JP
PS: I read your letter to my aquarium of fish, terrarium of local herps, 3 cats and 2 dogs….they all laughed so hard! The squirrels outside on the feeders and all the little birdies at our heated birdbath also overheard me and cracked up. Heck, even the rabbits in the next field over who stay plentiful even after I’ve been shooting and eating them over there for 20 years mighta been laughing for all I know.
PSS: Nowadays there’s respect for Native American culture. I’d say it’s largely due to the idea that they were connected to their lives and many insisted to the death that that was all that mattered. Now, this respect has also inspired a new interest in hunting and gathering in some quarters. Oddly, many who respect NAC seem to be city folk who loathe hunters. As such, they’re being racist and elitist to boot. I have the same right to access anything NA’s do. They could’ve lived domestic lifestyles and spared wild game animals at any point after the US had cities, after learning of alternatives. The hunting tribes could’ve moved south and planted more to avoid killing game as much as possible. Their culture was based on both necessity and freewill, like ours. I’d like to have my choice of eating game be just as respected.
