Meatheads, or How to Diy Without Getting Killed

The Outer Kaliforonia Book Of The Alive #1

by Noah Wareness

Youth of today don’t know fuckall of history. They’re just swinging through the bank vaults on liana vines, setting bonfires, throwing shurikens at hogs. Born here and talking like the yuppies came to us. Like humped in overnight cross the freeway with brain sludge mustaches and the air all mergency broadcasts. Fact is yuppies built this town. Their money brought in mowers for the jungle, insta freeway mix to stop the rivers. We’re the mutants here. We’re the mutants here, and it’s our crew’s got the crazy story. . . .

Punks on acid keep on yelling past the bamboo fence, yelling stupid revelations. Maybe all the corpses in Kaliforonia did wake up once, but that’s history, and no one cares enough to care. You’ve got this sweet bedroom overlooking the radioactive swamp, it’s one short suspension bridge to the spam factory, and kids are calling Meatheads the best band in the world.

Still.

You miss the days when nobody came to your shows, nobody was feeding you the innerest secret mysteries of Lost Angeles, and they hadn’t formed a single death cult in your honor. Lately it’s all last-minute brain transplants, telepathic silkscreen ink and tripping by accident into electrostatic ghost vortexes. It’s like drinking palm wine solves nothing anymore, and you can barely remember when the way of the samurai just meant chopping shit up with swords. . . .

372 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 28, 2016

About the author

Noah Wareness lives in the city with his friends. He writes by hand.

Reviews

[Psalm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Noah's prose is darkly lyrical and intimate. It rolls in that way where every few pages could stand on its own as an intriguing and meaningful text. The story and its characters resonate with me as someone who struggles with the collectivism and the codependency of punk houses. Definitely read this if you're a punk because it was written for you. And/or read it if you fold steel. I go back to Meatheads because it wakes up the swordsmith in my head.