You've been popping dopamine exciters, MAO inhibitors, and you've been coaxing ever-increasing amounts of growth hormone from your body for the past two years. As a result of all this hard work, your gonads have been screaming with a sexual fervor you wouldn't have dreamed possible.Your transsexual, transvestite, omnisexual, acid-head domestic partner is in Tokyo for the 5th annual hackers' convention, and auto-eroticism just isn't turning your propeller today. What the fuck is a trendy-chic, psychedelic, new-age mutant with significant surgical enhancements to do?
Don't worry. Just don your space helmet, put on your vibrating body suit, and get your modem ready. All you have to do now is select a body (male today, handsome, naked but for a tattered loincloth, bulging muscles; don't forget accents of virtually glowing paint!) Now wire your dick through your tongue, your asshole through your finger, and your inner thighs through your feet.
Pack your left nostril with cotton for improved right-brain stimulation, drop three hits of acid and two hits of ecstasy, and hope that your partner decides to wear the 100 yard-long winged dragon body today. Then dial her hotel room in Japan, where they have supplied her with a high-tech portable telediddler that rivals the quality of your own desktop unit.
Yes, the future is here now, as any dutiful reader of Mondo 2000 will tell you. Moreover, the very near future holds more in store for us that you can imagine. New and improved forms of art, fashion, music, drugs, and computer technology are on the horizon and guaranteed to FUCK your mind with a capital 'F.'
But there's more. The goddamned fucking fascistic conspirational government is out to get you. They'll stop at nothing to rob you of your free will and personal liberties by brainwashing you with propaganda and stealing your expensive computer peripherals. Your only defense is a cyberpunk computer built out of discarded computer parts, a genius IQ, and a pervasive hacker underground.
Oh, and don't forget to add a few dozen dashes of hedonism in there. From brain machines to affordable ($17,000.00) VRs, to constant drug-enhanced sex, it's all there and waiting for you. The gimmicks, mindfucks, and snake oils of the future are here now - only this time they really work!!!
The folks at Mondo may deal strictly with the bizarre and the technological, but the magazine is far from one-dimensional. Art is a major focus, with music taking the lead. Issue #3 features interviews with Dee-lite, Debbie Harry, Frank Zappa, The Butthole Surfers, and many more. Reviews are also popular, taking up a number of pages in the back of the magazine.
Says Ken Goffman, founder and editor in chief whose name appears on the masthead as R.U. Sirius, "Hackers don't read Mondo 2000 for information on how to hack, they know how to hack. They read us for the cultural milieu." While articles like, "Cracking Mac Software for Fun and Profit," may prove him wrong on the former count, the magazine does center on the cultural aspects of the mutant/hacker/cyberpunk subculture. Issues also offer interviews and conversations with famous hackers and software company CEOs, like Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Development Corp.
There are also articles about how to improve and enhance your "mutant" style, such as "How to Grow Your Own Growth Hormone," and articles on how to mail-order prescription drugs. Mondo also features fascinating articles, like, "Teledildonics," and, "Muzak, The Concept of Manipulation Through Music"
- "Hackers don't read Mondo 2000 for information on how to hack, they know how to hack. They read us for the cultural milieu."
Strong political messages permeate throughout the magazine. Issue #3's editorial is entitled "A thanksgiving Prayer," by William S. Burroughs, and provides incredibly harsh criticism of everything "American." Civil liberties are highly valued within the magazine, especially the public's right to free speech, an uncensored press, and lots of drugs, both those that are currently illegal, and those that are available only by prescription.
These issues prompt articles like a highly controversial article in issue #1 that explained that ATM hack, how to get the PIN numbers from ATM cards for fun and profit. Incidentally, Mondo caught a lot of shit from its readers for not printing the plans to make such a machine. Their excuse? - they didn't want unethical hackers ripping off people who couldn't afford to lose the money.
The most immediately striking feature of Mondo 2000 is the graphics. Much of this is due to a consulting firm, Fun City Megamedia, that is helping the magazine become even more of a raging success than it already is. The rest is due to a large staff of highly skilled and creative graphic artists that have access to the some of the highest quality graphics computer systems in the business.
The layout is extraordinary and constantly evolving. Issue #2 had perhaps six pages with color. Their third sparkles with the brilliant colors and twisted art of the most ingenious computer artists in the field. The magazine is in a major process of evolution, and as more advertisers and readers come in, the graphic design is getting better by leaps and bounds.
"I mean," says Duncan, Mondo's PR man, "most magazines just start out, and it looks like they typed it on a fucking typewriter. Just look at what we've made!" If you think issue #3 is beautiful, you just might cream in your jeans at Duncan's optimistic plug, "Just wait 'till you see issue #4. You're going to see some really amazing shit!"
Indeed, Mondo has grown quite a bit since its inception only three issues ago (it's a quarterly.) The first magazine was printed with a very small advertiser base, and no charter members. No direct mail campaign was launched. Publicity was solely word-of-mouth, and the first issue was distributed mostly at hacker and computer conventions.
Mondo grew from there to the point less than a year later, when just under 100,000 copies are sold, 20,000 to subscribers. Mondo conservatively estimates its readership (affectionately termed "mondoids") at 500,000 to one million readers, most of whom read the magazine from cover to cover. More liberal estimates hint that as many as 20 people may read one copy, because the magazine is so hard to find.
- "I mean," says Duncan, Mondo's PR man, "most magazines just start out, and it looks like they typed it on a fucking typewriter. Just look at what we've made!"
This problem is the result of the extraordinarily high printing costs, and limited distribution concentrated heavily in the silicon valley region. The first issue is not available anywhere, and is already worth more than the cover price.
Ads come fairly cheap in Mondo, at around $2500.00 for a four-color, full-page in the middle of the magazine. Double that for a back page ad, and you're still getting a bargain, especially considering the very specific market you're reaching.
I asked Duncan about the reader survey in the back of issue #3, the third such survey the magazine has done. In addition to the usual personal questions about vibrators, sexual fantasies, and sexual orientation, the survey covers every aspect of the magazine, from design, graphics, and reviews, to interviews and articles.
The question that intrigued me most read, "We would be selling out if we took ads from the following people..." and then proceeded to list all forms of vile advertisers like beer and tobacco companies. Duncan assured me that Mondo would never be desperate enough to take ads from such scumbags, even if they did have a lot of money.
"It would make our readers distrust us, and it would be a betrayal of our regular advertisers. They think they can buy their way into any magazine." It appears that in this case, they're sorely wrong.
Mondo 2000 has quickly become the most famous, and most expensive, magazine of its kind. At this stage, it is obvious that the magazine doesn't make money, but Duncan assured me he has high hopes, considering the magazine's merits and its incredible growth. "We want to be the Rolling Stone of the information age," says Goffman.