SEX IN PRINT

It was a thrilling day here in the office when two magazines arrived at the very same time, both with the most desperate covers anyone has seen in a long time. Talk magazine, the progeny of Miramax and Tina Brown, pictures Heather Graham as a frog with built-in lilypads ... featuring an interior interview all about her attitude toward sex and a story on the girls of porno written by none other than a slumming Martin Amis! Sex sells (and right now we're helping Tal k sell it), but seeing this magazine trying to cover serious feature news (Dr. Jerri Nelsen's stirring bout with breast cancer in Antactica) while still burying its readers in boobs is like watching Ron Jeremy dance ballet.

Meanwhile, an even worse offering from a much worse magazine-- Movieline (the USA Today of film magazines) photographed Jennifer Love Hewitt in a fuck-me dress shirt with the headline "The vamp next door." Really? I wasn't aware everyone's next-door neighbor was a Disney progeny. There's nothing girl-next- door about Hewitt-- either that or I need to find a new neighborhood. Also included is "2001: A Sex Odyssey," which means Kubrick's estate just got another nickel for the billionth lame rip-off of that line. And the puzzling phrase, thrown in just to get another number on the cover: "25 things that get Hollywood hot." You mean besides summer weather? But that's not the jaw-dropper: the prize is the main headline, which reads, "More Sex Than Usual."

More sex than usual? Does Maxim really have everyone that scared? Look folks, if you cover movies, cover movies. If you interview celebrities, interview celebrities. The last thing we need is every cover blurb trying to outdo the last for how jaunty and Maxim-like it can be. On Maxim, "More Sex Than Usual" is funny, because that implies an infinity-plus-one of sex coverage. On Movieline, it just means the cover model wasn't allowed to wear pants.

Tal k and Movieline, by covering sex when it's not their M. O. (like Maxim or Playboy or Cosmo or whatever rag they're ripping off) are simply throwing us a one-night stand. There's absolutely nothing wrong with covering sex (hell, we put "A Naked Woman Covered In Snakes" on our cover) ... just don't insult the public by pretending it's the only thing we care about.

PROBING THAT ALIEN STORY

Here's a bit of mail responding to our story about Raël (Volume 2 Issue 27) and his dominion over all the creatures on Earth:

I saw your magazine in the spy store [Spy Technologies] on Colfax. I make it a habit never to speak negatively about anyone if I can help it. But Raël has got it slightly wrong. His source was probably Zecharia Sitchin's book The 12 Planets. Humans are not clones of aliens, though we are their genetic offspring.

According to the ancient Sumerian texts called the Enuma Elish, they "binded their image onto an already existing creature-- homo erectus-- using the ovum from that hominid and their DNA." Humans are technically a hybrid-- part alien and part ape.

I wish Raël well in whatever his vision is. There is never enough love on the planet.
--Keeston

That's all well and good, but we at Go-Go are sticking with Raël's version-- anyone who built a theme park out of hay is just fine by us.

MAKING LOCAL MUSIC HISTORY

T he streets are alive with the sound of music, or at least the buzz about Andrew Murphy's ambitious project to catalog the history of Denver's music scene. Murphy, the godfather of last year's Local Shakedown CD compilation, has announced his intention to publish a 200-page one-time magazine composed of interviews, first-person accounts, and old articles detailing the scene's growth (with an emphasis on the last decade or so). Support has already poured in from Radio 1190 AM, the Colorado Music Association, and viewers like you. We can assure you this project is not just a pipe dream, and will be fully realized sometime this spring or summer. How can we be so sure? Because Go-Go will be printing exclusive excerpts from the magazine in three consecutive issues beginning March 15.

Westword's music maven Laura Bond gave the project her royal blessing in a recent issue, saying, among other things, "We believe Murphy deserves some kind of medal from the mayor's office." While we wholeheartedly concur, we left governmental recognition up to providence

last week and directed our lobbying energies at Murphy himself, jumping on board as full-fledged sponsors and supporters of his dream. We're proud to be a part of this, and hope this proves once and for all that our pages are the best source for local music news in Colorado.

SIGN OUR YEARBOOK

W ell, it was bound to happen eventually. Go-Go is jumping on the "Best Of" bandwagon with our own entry into the yearly awards feast on March 1. Our Pez-dispenser of plaque-worthy awards will be called The Yearbook, a mock-up of the old high school annual we all keep stashed away somewhere in case of nostalgia. It's just another way for us to mimic a time-worn theme issue and still retain our cheeky charm.

As usual, you are invited to participate. Go to page 9 and you'll find a list of categories for the best and brightest of 2000- 2001 ... all you need to do is drop us a line and tell us who you think is the Band of the Year, the Bar of the Year, and so on and so forth. Votes will be tallied and winners will be celebrated. As noted on the entry form, nominations may be made through e-mail, by phone, or by faxing/ mailing that handy form to our offices. Thanks, keep in touch, have a nice summer, stay just the way you are, and don't be a stranger. Friends forever.

ET CETERA...

M usicians, how do you succeed? Follow LZ's example. We found rapper LZ standing out in freezing cold weather at the Pavilions to push his self-titled rap CD. Pushing some other people's, too. He was literally handing strangers a set of Walkman headphones and playing his single for them. "People think you're a millionaire overnight?" he said. "No. It's a lot of hard work and this is what I do for a living." Now that's the attitude that leads to success.

A big thank you to the East Colfax Walgreen's for finally restocking those 11x14 picture frames. Now all you need are cashiers who show up for work and store managers who know how to use a cash register.

Finally, the quote of the week goes to a manager for singer Robbie Williams, who turned down our interviewer by saying, "He gets publicity when he burps, so he doesn't want to waste his time doing something useful." Yeah, I guess Robbie's right: you've got to burp when you're winning.

--Chris J. Magyar