

Read this issue of my newsletter in PDF zine form to escape the rigid confines of Substack’s formatting, or enjoy it below in the standard, optimized format. Read the PDF in the browser, download it, do as you will. I guarantee the file is virus free.
YOU ARE NOW LOOKING AT
the reigning Super Street Fighter II Turbo champion of Prague. Thank you, thank you. It was a victory that took two countries and thirty years to achieve but here I stand, atop a battered pile of Czech twenty year olds who now rue the day they dared to challenge me at a fighting game that I was putting sweat and tears into before their parents even made kissy face at each other.
I want to thank me, mostly, for being an unruly, dusty old bastard who kicks all the ass, and collects every name. Secondly, my main man, E. Honda, who's flying head butt and furious hands know not the meaning of fear, and will not suffer the cheap gimmickry of busted old fighting game characters piloted by youthful whippersnappers. While you weren't even a future thought I was neglecting my homework to callous my fingers upon my Super Nintendo controller, night after night, sumo head-butting my weeping younger brother into oblivion. I was forged in various dark, suburban basements, the scourge of slumber parties neighborhood wide.
Never mind that every month at our local Prague fighting game meetups these kids handedly serve me my own ass nine out of ten times at Street Fighter VI, our main competitive game, my creaky old fingers, and aged reaction times unable to compete with their spry and nimble eye-hand coordination, leaving me trying to catch my breath as my heart starts to skip beats. Who told you that most of them hadn't even played Super Street Fighter II Turbo before that fateful night?! I fucking ran roughshod over those damn punks, not even losing a single round to their gimmicky Vega swan dives and M. Bison slide kicks. It was a magnificent victory WITH NO CAVEATS! NONE! YOU WANT TO CHALLENGE ME?! I'LL TAKE YOU ON. I'LL TAKE YOU ALL ON!
Yeah, that's what I thought.

SCRAMBLED TV PORN OR PUNK ROCK?
Speaking of 90's suburban basements, I not only wreaked havoc in fighting games there, I also discovered punk rock in one.
WHAT I'M LISTENING TO THIS WEEK
Daughter Chaos - "Noble Rot"Solid meat and potatoes, melodic death metal. Good for what ails you.
Rancid - "...and Out Come the Wolves"The album turns 30 this year. I have a story in the works about it.
LYRICS OF THE WEEK
And as the upperdog leisurely sighing
The local cultures are dying and dying
The programmed robots are buying and buying
And all secluded freaks, they are still trying, trying
Gogol Bordello - "Through the Roof ‘n’ Underground"