Get caught stealing office supplies and you’ll be screwed.

Standing in the shower washing ants and various other substances off of my shivering, shriveling body, I thought about my little zine and, as is common in these situations, began to get really angry at all of you who read it, which quickly spilled over into a more generalized rage, which I call Ralph. Ralph usually manifests itself like this: At the apex of my anger, I suddenly go all calm and ceramic, and then Ralph is there, telling me what to do, and I am swept with happy, giddy relief because I no longer have to deal with anything, it's all in Ralph's able hands. Ralph hangs around for a few days and tells me what to do, and then gives me back control. The Bad People keep trying to take Ralph away, but so far we've outwitted them.

All that is neither here nor there, however; the point is that Ralph helped me to realize that the one major issue I could help people with in this VSA is how to put out your zine for (almost) free. How Ralph showed me this is of no concern, although it did involve some property damage.

Let's face it: We're DIY publishers, for god's sake, and we live in a capitalist world, so everything costs money. However, if we had money, ironically enough we would no longer be considered DIY publishers. If we had money, we'd be considered Mega Rich Dilettante Fuckwits, or so is the extent of my comprehension of the issue. Lacking money, we endeavor to publish quality work, manufacture it into a pleasing and accessible shape, and distribute that item to the waiting maws of our greedy, ungrateful fans, all without shelling out a dime, if we can help it. The No Money and Issues policy of DIY publishing is one of the more daunting aspects of self-publishing, as we all know: Everything in this fucking world costs money.

Every single person who has ever produced a zine on a regular basis has solved this problem, to a lesser or greater extent, on their own. This is not their solution. As a matter of fact, fuck them if they haven't passed their wisdom along. Ralph and I will be paying them a visit fairly soon. No, what follows is my solution to the cash flow problem, and it boils down to a beautifully simple single command: Don't pay for anything. It's easier than it sounds.

First, let's examine the materials needed to assemble an issue of The Inner Swine. The materials used for your lame zine may vary from this list. I could not care less what they might be. For each issue of TIS I need: An IBM PC with Windows, a word processor, and Adobe Pagemaker; A quality laser printer; Good letter-sized paper; A quality photocopier; 54-60lb cover stock; Mailing labels; Envelopes; Postage; Several six packs of Raoul's Beefy Beer.

Whew, that's a lot of stuff. And under normal conditions, a lot of expensive stuff, bubba. Happily, I haven't existed under what you'd call "normal conditions" since I was 12, which is when (historians agree) I simultaneously rejected god and accepted my inner UberMensch, who is also, by great coincidence, named Ralph. When you leave normal conditions behind, you enter a shadowy world called Jeff Conditions, and in Jeff Conditions the items listed above are mostly free, with some exceptions. There are actually two possible ways to get all of the above for free: the Fell Off a Truck method, which I can't recommend because it involves potential incarceration and prison rape, and then The Way of Jeff. In The Way of Jeff, there is no prison rape, at least not that I am personally aware of. There is a rather blatant disregard for laws and the rules of civilized society. But no prison rape. That I can remember, anyway.

The powerful supercomputers of the future that my office will soon possess will someday enable me to beam The Inner Swine directly into your brain, probably killing you.

Get a Job in Publishing. Maybe you still harbor ludicrous dreams of financial success in the career of your choice. Ha! I giggle girlishly at your dreams. It is an unproven and largely speculative fact that people who self-publish their drivel lack the drive and blandness of personality to be successful in business. If you cared enough to spend 90% of your mental energies on earning money, you certainly wouldn't be publishing a Flintstones fanzine or the like. Therefore, stop thinking about your career and making moolah and land yourself the greatest job known to man, assuming that the man in question is a DIY publisher: low-level shlub in the publishing industry. I did this back in 1994 and it was the best zine decision I ever made. Let's look at the positive side to working in publishing. Want to? First off, most publishing companies, as I can personally attest, are confused, disorganized messes. This is due to the nature of publishing, which is an attempt to take the creative process of the human being and streamline it into a profit. It is also due to the fact that the people who choose publishing as a career are 33% DIY publishers more concerned with stealing copier machine codes than with doing their jobs; 33% bored, apathetic people who grew up thinking something would eventually happen to knock them off their sad track but who find themselves now working in publishing; and 33% complete freaks. The last 1% is thought to be made up of men and women who got lost in the bowels of office buildings and wander there to this day, a race of shadowy mole-creatures lost to the sunlit world.

More importantly, publishing companies offer you everything you'll ever need to publish your own scrawled works of art. The day I got my job in publishing, I got a computer with desktop publishing software, laser printers by the dozen, several industrial-strength copy machines, and all the paper I could ever want. Plus, staples. Oh, I also got a boss, an inbox, and a dress code, but shit, man, I inherited someone else's economic strength in the process, and if I have to endure a few conference calls or an occasional employment review, I'll do it.

Free Copies. The best part of having a job in publishing, of course, is the free copies. Free copies are pretty much the holy grail of any zinester, and we'll lie, steal, or cheat to get them. When you work in publishing, free copies are a simple matter of devoting all your thought and energy towards acquiring them. Here are my three basic strategies for getting free copies at work without getting fired and/or beaten up:

1. The Balls of Steel Approach. The simplest but most dangerous way to acquire free copies is to stuff your masters into a folder labeled HORRIBLE DISGUSTING GROSS PICTURES OF PHLEGM, march off to the copier of choice, and start brazenly copying. This follows a belief that you can get anyone to believe or do anything simply by applying your massive Ayn-Randish will on them. In this scenario, which I have used successfully under the right conditions, the secret is to maintain eye contact with anyone who approaches. The moment I glimpse anyone coming near, I stare at them, fiercely. When they arrive at the copier, they're usually either so freaked out they just hurry by, or are too polite to break eye contact with me. I make no effort to hide what I'm doing. I just keep my eyes locked on theirs until they leave. Men won't look away because of some instinctual competitive drivethey'll challenge you to a fight, but they won't look away, as that would risk becoming known as The Office Nancy, which no man can live with. Office Nancies don't live long, once identified as such. They're usually found about a week later, hanging in the kitchen area.

The BOS technique has resulted in a few conferences with Human Resources, but no firings yet. In Human Resources conferences regarding my staring, I usually manage to break down into tears at least once. Then, a quiet request for our company's employee support hotline, and everyone usually leaves me alone for a few weeks.

2. The George "The Animal" Steel Approach. A more wily but sometimes unpredictable way of scamming free copies is to skulk to the copier of choice and be prepared to cause a diversion if anyone in authority comes nears you. The easiest diversion is to quickly snatch your materials from the copier (possibly while it's still chugging along) and run; while this is somewhat effective, it often results in burns, ink staining, and my tie caught in the machinery of the copier, with a crowd of people gathered around trying to free me from the copier and picking up scraps of paper and saying, "What the hell is this?" At that point it is usually best to feign a seizure of some sort.

Normally my job is a heinous maze of suffering. But at least I get free copies.

A better diversion is to pause the copier discreetly and claim that it's broken. Copiers break down in offices all the time because Americans can't build anything very well and our entire economy is now based on service contracts for shitty crap and licensed use. When the copier is broken, most people just walk away without alerting anyone else or making any attempt, however minor, to fix it themselves. This is because people are dumb and selfish. So turn off the copier, shrug mournfully, complain that you have pages stuck inside and that you'll "be here a while, ha ha ha!", and stare daggers at them as they move on to the next copier. Then turn the copier back on, clear out the paused job, and start over.

A less-than-ideal diversion is to eat inappropriate stuffing materials, like the actual George "The Animal" Steele did.

3. The Nancy-Boy Approach. Come in on a weekend when no one else is around and copy any way you fucking please. Copy in your underwear. Copy with your feet up reading Penthouse. Use three copiers at once. Who cares? Once you descend into Nancy-Boy territory you have no worries, and no pride.

Personally, I choose #3. I used to battle my way with #1 or #2, but I'm too tired now. Just call me Nancy.

Gotta go back to the endless treadmill of horror that is my job now.

You may be wondering if The Way of Jeff basically boils down to getting a job in publishing and raping it for every resource it offers. The answer, of course, is: Pretty much. If you've already committed to some other career that doesn't offer you free desktop publishing software, free laser printers, and unlimited free copies, well, I'd advise you to reconsider your career choice. Even working part-time at Kinkos would be better, I think, from a pure zine-publisher point of view.

There you have it. My secret: Corporate America is my ally. Rather than railing against the bland, faceless army of Corporate Mongrels, I welcome them with open armsbecause each one brings a copy machine with them.