Dream Whip #14
Publisher: Microcosm Publishing
Published: 2007
Format: paperback
Description: Bill Brown's Dream Whip zine is a raw little chunk of America, full of darkened crop-fields and desert moonlight and sad, empty diners. In its 14th issue, Dream Whip is a zine with some history behind it. "I was skateboarding one night, back in early '90s," Bill explains over email. "It was late, and it was cold. I hit a rock and, suddenly, I was lying on my back and the sky was full of shooting stars. I was dizzy for a year. I started doing a zine to take my mind off my broken head. I finally got better, more or less, but the zine kept going." The long-running Dream Whip is an informed, articulate, patient piece of existential storytelling. In a tone that's half Ira Glass, half Cometbus, Bill's 344-page pocket-size 14th issue gives us stories of biblical theme parks and border-crossers, of Dutch punks and haunted houses. His is a wide-spanning, optimistic, Technicolored America, more Woody Allen than Kerouac, but always on the road. As says Bill, "Dream Whip is a bad country song full of open roads and achy hearts and ratty motel rooms where I take stock of how many miles I've gone and how many I've still got to go."