>Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1993 20:20:48 -0500 (CDT) From: James P Romenesko Subject: Obscure Electronic #3 W e l c o m e to....... O B S C U R E E L E C T R O N I C # 3 ``````````````````` ``````````````````````````````````` ............................................................. OBSCURE is edited by Jim Romenesko. This electronic zine of the publishing underground is also available in print form for $2/issue from POB 1334, Milwaukee, WI 53201. The print version doesn't duplicate this electronic zine. Try it out! ............................................................. ## This Issue: Where's Full Force Frank, the psychopathic publisher? ## FULL FORCE FRANK was the zine world's most notorious publisher -- until his mysterious disappearance in late summer of 1991. In his zines, SINGIN' DOSE ANTI-PSYCHOTIC BLUES and LIVIN' IN A POWDER KEG AND GIVIN' OFF SPARKS, he promised to commit a massacre sometime this decade. In every issue of his popular zine, he ranted and raved about his killing plans. He was so determined and so outspoken about them that even the FBI came looking for him -- or so he said. But he stopped publishing without warning two summers ago. What happened? ----------- QUOTES FROM FRANK: "Nope, this zine ain't the Readers Digest or the Farmer's Almanac. I offer no limits and I accept no limits. This zine salutes and pays homage to violence of all sorts. In particular, this magazine attempts to acknowledge and glorify the courage of those rare people that turn their thoughts and dreams and fantasies into reality, mass and serial killers." "I hope everybody who gets this zine will write and tell me what it did to their minds and souls. I want to know. As long as this zine has had some effect on you, I'm satisfied. The greatest tragedy in the world is when a person denies or suppresses his own reality. I have every intention to fulfill my own reality [of committing a massacre] during my lifetime. When and where and who and how is my own private business. Meanwhile, I continue to publish these zines to feed and nourish my own dead soul." --------------------------------------------------- HOW I GOT TO KNOW FULL FORCE FRANK In March of 1990, I received an unsolicited package of zines from Frank -- they were issues of SINGIN' DOSE ANTI-PSYCHOTIC BLUES. He sent this letter with the publications: "My of my readers suggested that I send you a copy of my zine for possible review. So, being a sucker for free publicity, I'm enclosing copies. ....WEll, gotsa go! Take it sleazy dude! Hope ya find my rag interesting." Well...I did. And I found it frightening, too. I read it just before going to bed and woke up that night screaming. No lie. Frank's zine was murder-obsessed. What bothered me, I think, was his essay called "Handy Hints for a Messier Massacre." It was exactly that: a how-to guide for people thinking about going on a shooting spree. A few "handy hints" from Frank: * "The making of a successful massacre involves the following: good guns, a powerful and large quantity of ammunition, good shooting tecnique, element of surprise attack, inability of victims to escape from confined area, good mental state of gunman, attacking a poorly defended location, single-minded and clear-cut goal. In my opinion, this is the basic checklist of the ingredients needed for a successful massacre. Of course, there are no guarantees. Hell, you can invade a nunnery and one of the sisters might have a loaded automatic underneath her habit and blow you away even before you start your massacre!" * "I like the 9mm specialty rounds. These bullets cost $1.25 each, but if you are going to do a massacre, I cannot see money being a viable consideration." * "It is important that you get people down on the ground as you begin the massacre. This is so that they cannot try to escape or attempt to wrestle with your weapon away from you. At the start of a massacre you never aim at anyone's head. You shoot in wide arcs. Covering all of your targets and you aim at the midsection of the body. You hit people in the lower chest, stomach, groin and upper thigh. The midsection. This is the most effective type of fire at the start of a mass killing." * "The next item is 'Good Mental State of Shooter.' To some people it may sound strange to refer to a 'good mental state' during a mass murder rampage, but I see nothing strange about it. There is absolutely nothing inherently insane about mass murder. It is a conscious, rational decision that a person reaches after considering all his options and deciding that the act of killing a group of people is a worthwhile and logical thing to do based on this person's own reality and life experience." ----> Reading this for the first time, I wondered: Do I call the FBI or do I try to interview Frank. I chose the latter and sent him a note (along with a copy of OBSCURE), asking for his phone number. A few days later he replied. FRANK'S LETTER: "I was looking forward to your review of my zine in OBSCURE, but in the past two weeks a major problem has surfaced! It's the FBI! Yes, the goddamnded Federal Bureau of Investigation has discovered my zine and they are fucking me up majorly! Things are still not resolved, but it seems highly likely that my zine is soon to be dead. I guess it's time for me to go into 'Deep Cover,' as the spies call it. Sink underground along with my psychosis! With this fuckin' FBI surveillance and harassment, I plan on cutting out of this zine publishing scene. "I am not a regular publisher. I am, in fact, a psychopath. And if there is one thing that a psychopath does not need, it's to be harassed by the FBI. I've got to look out for Number One. And you all know who Number One is. #1 is me. Nobody on the face of the Earth will cover my ass. I've got to cover it myself. But two weeks later, I received this second letter from Frank: "About ten days ago I sent you a letter advising you that my zine was dead due to a FBI Sting operation. Well, I've just spent the last ten days talking to my lawyer and getting some legal information...and the bottom line is this: My zine is reborn! Praise Satan! There are several changes. I have a new mailing address and I now require a signed disclaimer before I will send anyone my zines...." ............ Frank declined to give me his phone number and requested I not write about him. I went against his wishes, believing that the alleged FBI pursuit of him made him even more of a story. I HAD to write about Frank. I told readers this about the self-proclaimed psychopath: -- He was sexually abused as a child by his father. Because of that, he claims he can drink white milk because it reminds him of semen. -- He has a foot fetish. He once said: "I practice only two things within my mind - killing people and torturing/worshipping women's feet and shoes." -- That he's in his mid-20s, lives in Brooklyn, and loses money on his zine. He said in one interview: "I lose about $500 on every issue of my zine. But that's not a problem. Got plenty of money. Don't ask how I have plenty of money, but I have it. Never worked a day in my life and never will." In my article, I also published excerpts from letters that Frank sent me. That made him angry and his response to the OBSCURE article about him came in the form of a ten-page letter to me. He wrote: "I am sitting here reading over issue #6 of OBSCURE for about the tenth time and lemme tell you, I am one pissed-off psychopath!!! ...You had absolutely no right to reprint my private letters to you!! Anything in my zine, yes. But what you did, by reprinting private letters that I sent you, was compromise my entire new set-up at this new mailing address. Are you stupid or are you just a jerk?? How dare you reprint a letter of mine that I had handwritten to you in which I brag about having defeated the FBI and sign off the letter with 'Death to the FBI." ...What in the name of Satan possessed you to reprint such a letter? At best, you are incredibly stupid. At worst, you are an arrogant piece of pig-licking shit who deliberately printed the letter in the hope that the FBI would resume their harassment. Effective immediately, you are being dropped from my mailing list and will never receive any future zines from me." FRANK WAS TRUE TO HIS WORD. He never wrote to me again, or sent copies of his new zine, LIVIN' IN A POWDER KEG.. He put a few issues of that and then, without warning, stopped publishing. He also discontinued his pen-pal relationship with many zinesters, never giving an explanation. His disappearance fueled considerable speculation. What happened to Frank? I asked several zine editors who knew Frank what they thought. Here are their replies: SCOTT WILLIAMS, editor of PSYCHO JOE and longtime pen-pal with Frank, says he has a few ideas. "I can only guess, but I think probably he just switched lifestyles to become more accepted so he can live out a life and not worry about being destroyed. I think he could have gotten married to some psycho girl or gotten in a relationship with some psychotic woman. I hope he's just in hiding. I hope I hear about him on the news in the next six months -- hear that he's become the most infamous mass murderer in the history of the world." JULIE LINDEMANN, former editor of CATHOLIC GUILT, believes that Frank was a federal agent. "What better way for the FBI to gather information on slippery, subversive individuals than through a zine published by a self-proclaimed psycho? I found the carefully constructed quality of Frank's publications disturbing -- everything from content to quality didn't seem right. Would a true psychopath produce these fastidiously tidy tomes on murder and mayhem that appeal to quirky characters tucked away in America's nooks and crannies? It seems perfectly plausible that a government agency could fabricate a character named Frank to function as an informant. A stroke of genius! Frank's publications could be deliberately designed to elicit a response from the target audience of 'psychopaths.'" MARK HEJNAR, a videomaker who has a video being released soon that features Frank prancing around in his apartment, waving an Uzi as he rants about his massacre-in-the-making. He says this: "It's just my personal belief that he got sick of it all and that he had too many contacts for his own good." JOE VALIQUETTE, media liason officer for the FBI: "Our office has never had anything to do with him." ......... EPILOGUE: Frank's alive! ANSWER ME! publisher Jim Goad reports that he received a letter from Frank earlier this year. It will be published in the next issue of ANSWER ME!, due out this month. Frank doesn't offer any explanation for his disappearance, though, according to Goad. What happened? We still don't know. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Get the FRANK-PAK from OBSCURE. It includes a copy of Frank's zine, his interview in APOCALYPSE CULTURE, the OBSCURE feature on Frank, and a Xerox of his sticker. Just $4 to Jim Romenesko, POB 1334, Milwaukee, WI 53201. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++