In Abandon #4: A Documentary

Mike, who spends this entire zine making references to his friends solely by first names, lived in Tampa, FL and was the roadie for Reversal of Man and Combat Wounded Veteran when he published this zine in 1999. it's a snapshot of a time and a place and a certain worldview. Mike is hungry for the world outside. His friends are hungry too. They comb the U.S. and Canada on a punk quest for meaning through digging through trash, screaming at the top of their lungs, and writing romanticizing screeds to summarize it all. In many ways, Mike is the original vaguebooker; you read these pages and he's not saying a whole lot of specifics but he's telling you what his life and perception are like. You pick up a lot of details from what is and is not being said. It's about friendship and travel, meandering crushes, and seeing new places and not finding what you expected when you set foot in a mythical place that you've only read about in others version of romanticized travelogues. It's about hoping to recreate others' powerful experiences by visiting the same places, meeting the same people. It's about that period at the turn of the millennium where punk was about recreating DC's vague ideas of Revolution Summer before it was swallowed by and consumed with fashion and dance music. This zine is a lifestyle to adopt wholesale. It's about privileged wanderings and believing that your friends are saving the world. It's a key to immerse yourself in a new world where every day is special and you belong wherever you are innately.