April/May 1998
The first bimonthly issue, the final oversized issue, and the worst-selling issue since the Belly Button cover. With this one, Speak's printer announced that it would not print future issues of the magazine because of profanity (ours not theirs). The problematic piece, "Moo Yang," was a short story about fourteen-year-old Thai-Chinese prostitute. Because printers are less notorious for reading copy than advertisers, we didn't anticipate a problem. But Martin laid out the story as a collection of newspaper scraps, with the first line of each page increased in size to represent a headline. The first line of the story coincidentally was "Ava was giving head to a seventy-one-year-old." This stirred enough attention to cause the printer to read further, leading him to this gem two lines later: "Give it another few licks, missy, and if the old warhorse don't stir I'll settle for a high five in the rectum." (I can almost hear Margaret Dumont's "Well, I never!") I sent a sincere apology, along with a request for specific copy guidelines to ensure no future slip-ups. Apology was accepted, but I'm still waiting on the guidelines.

Content
Interviews with artist Victor Burgin, filmmaker Jane Wagner and poet Hal Sirowitz.

Waiting for Tony: self-help guru Tony Robbins lives in the land of the exclamation point.

Toons for Dults: an overview of animation for adults.

Generacion: Mexico's maverick magazine.

Scandal: media experts discuss Monica, O.J., Princess Di, Marv, Latrell and Amy.

 

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