Ninjalicious/Milky Puppy gone to Kinko's in the Sky
liz
I haven't been a regular alt.zinester, but my beloved Jeff, who you
guys may know as Ninjalicious (if you read Infiltration) or Milky Puppy
(if you read Yip) was. I wanted to let the community know that on
Tuesday, Jeff died after a long and amazingly busy, happy, and
life-filled battle with cancer. He didn't participate in this group
much anymore, but when I met him, he was an addict -- and a bit of a
leader if I recall. I know he'd want you guys to know.
His book, Access All Areas, a handbook to urban exploration, has just
been published, and anyone interested can find out more about that at
infiltration.org.
Thanks.
Liz
Marc Parker
and hilarious. Jeff was one of my favoritest (or should I say
"favouritest") zine people. A trade from him in the mailbox would make
my day, and the comments he gave my own zines were always
laugh-out-loud spot on. He will be greatly missed.
The time that he was interviewed on This American Life is still
available for free download on that show's web site, I do believe.
Anyone not so familiar with his work might want to check it out. The
guy had class.
The Inner Swine
footfo...@hotmail.com says...
Holy shit! I am doubfounded. I had no idea he was even ill. He just
contacted me a few weeks ago to ask that I adjust my web site so that
his name and nickname were not linked! I can't believe this!
I'm really very sorry to hear this, and sorry for your loss.
L
J
--
------------------
The Inner Swine
www.innerswine.com
D. Halligan
it along and hang in there. I started trading zines with Ninj when he first
started publishing Infiltration, he's always include nice notes or letters
and I always thought he was a great guy when he was around on alt.zines.
Infiltration was such a fun zine and so totally unique, which was mostly
because of the man behind it. Jeff will be missed greatly in the small
publishing world.-dan
"liz" <footfo...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1124979967.3...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Cully_J
"Marc Parker" <azma...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1124997005....@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com..
>Jeff was one of my favoritest (or should I say
> "favouritest") zine people.
That's classick (or should say klasik?).
hillarryus,
Cullen
Cully_J
reread this post. This post that I made a dumbass wisecrack on.
Cully
"Cully_J" <aca...@new.rr.com> wrote in message
news:SSsPe.32166$32.2...@tornado.rdc-kc.rr.com...
Cali Ruchala
Christ, I feel like I've just been kicked in the stomach.
I can't believe this. There's still a little piece of me that's
hoping it's a hoax, and that Jeff's going to come out with
"Gravedigging: Faking Your Own Death for Fun and Little Profit."
In fact, if he is, I hope to God he makes my credulity into a
preface for the first issue.
I was going to say that Jeff was one of my "best friends" in
zinedom, but then I realized that Jeff was one of those people,
I think, that just about every zinester would say was one of
their "best friends." I never heard anyone say a bad word about
him. I couldn't even think of a bad word that *could* be said
about him.
It was amazing to me that despite the attention he rightly got
for Infiltration, he was always shy of any kind of "fame," or
any accolades at all from outside of this misshapen and
obscure community. I think he even kept two separate PO Boxes
for YIP and Infiltration, and probably only a handful of us
knew what he did for his dayjob.
We "collaborated" on one zine together - *Now You're Cooking
With Food!* It was quite possibly the only inside joke on
alt.zines to be made into a real zine. The quotation marks
are around "collaborated" because we kicked the idea around,
I predictably forgot about it... and the next thing I know,
twenty copies are in my mailbox, complete with credit
to me. He did every single centimeter of it. If it had been
me in his position, I not only would have taken full credit
but would have inserted "Poisoned PopTarts for Cali" as one
of the recipes.
The last time I traded email with him, he told me he'd bought
a house, and finally had control of a publication at the office
that he really enjoyed working on. That was, I think, 2001.
I remember Jeff said something about an affinity we had: That
"No matter how badly you try to stay serious in writing something,
you just can't help cracking a joke." That was probably a lot
more true of Jeff, to his credit, than the hack I've become.
My best wishes to you and those closer to him than I was.
Best,
Cali
--
Cali Ruchala, Diacritica Press
http://www.diacritica.com
Kris Kane at dot
I haven't read or posted to alt.zines in years, but I often thought of Jeff
and the work he did. His name came up in a conversation just last week about
favorite, stand-out zines we'd seen over the years. Infiltration and YIP
were easily two of my favorites. I remember showing infiltration.org to
people and gaining "instant cool" because I could say I'd met the guy behind
it.
A group of us from Menace (me, my wife Casey, and Kate Fink) hung out with
Jeff in Richmond, Virginia probably about ten years ago. He was there on a
business trip, I think at a genealogy conference, and we were supposed to
meet him for dinner. We were shamefully late in meeting him at the bar in
the hotel he was staying at--traffic, Richmond's confusing street layout,
mostly my bad habits--but he was too sweet to mention how long his wait had
been.
We walked around Richmond for a bit, had dinner, then walked him back to his
hotel before parting company for the night. I distinctly remember stopping
several times during our impromptu strolling tour of some of Richmond's
darker side streets so Jeff could look into the abandoned and empty
buildings we passed. He briefly talked about how he'd approach them as
projects, how he'd get in and what he'd hope to find.
I was genuinely touched by his obvious passion for and joy in "urban
exploration," and offered to host him should he ever want to come back to
the area to poke around. I remember him saying something like, "Oh, I'd love
to, but I just don't think I'll have the time." Of course, he was talking
about the demands of his work schedule, his ongoing publishing projects, and
his personal life, but looking back on it I can't help but be touched by the
poignancy of that statement. If anyone deserved more time, it was Jeff.
I wish I'd known him better. Jeff was, as I said to Cali Ruchala when first
hearing the news from him, "the sweetest guy ever." I'm so sorry to hear of
his passing.
The Inner Swine
>
> We "collaborated" on one zine together - *Now You're Cooking
> With Food!* It was quite possibly the only inside joke on
> alt.zines to be made into a real zine. The quotation marks
> are around "collaborated" because we kicked the idea around,
> I predictably forgot about it... and the next thing I know,
> twenty copies are in my mailbox, complete with credit
> to me. He did every single centimeter of it. If it had been
> me in his position, I not only would have taken full credit
> but would have inserted "Poisoned PopTarts for Cali" as one
> of the recipes.
>
"Now You're Cooking with Food" - I was one of the lucky ones to get a
copy of this gem, and I still have it. A glorious throw-away joke.
I now also remember this quote from Ninj's revamped alt.zines FAQ a few
years ago, which now amazes me:
"What really annoys me is that a third of the messages posted to this
group are posted by people who don't read it. That, and cancer."
Ninj: We'll miss ya.
L
J
--
The Inner Swine
www.innerswine.com
Steve Kolcow
-steve kolcow
H.D. Miller
Jeff was one of the great and good things of this world, someone you
could always count on for a kind word or a cheery thought, just a
genuine sweet guy.
I loved reading his writing (Infiltration was one of the best things
I'd ever seen) and I loved when he read my writing. I even loved having
him as an editor, and was intending to write more for him but kept
putting it off.
So this sucks.
All I can say is that Jeff will be missed.
Oscar Crosshatch
always a calming influence... and, if he'd had the chance, I'm sure
he'd have closed with a wisecrack. RIP, buddy.
~EmD
musea/Tom Hendricks
Thanks.
Liz
This is so sad. I didn't know Jeff, but I knew a classic, one-of-
a kind zine when I saw it. It was easy to add his zine, Infiltration,
to the
Zine Hall of Fame. It was a natural. And if zines are remembered
in history, his will be
considered surely one that was unique.
Tom
vlorbik
very sorry for your loss.
ninj was one of a kind.
se...@yip.org
Here's info about a tribute page Jeff's brother is setting up - he
wants photos of you in fountrains, as one of Jeff's hobbies was:
http://www.yip.org/oases/
Thanks,
Sean
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2005 16:57:42 -0400
From: Kyle Chapman <dasp...@yahoo.com>
To: dasp...@yahoo.com
Subject: Serious email about my brother
Dear friends and other folks,
A serious email for a change.
(Majority of this message was drafted on Tuesday,
August 23rd, 2005)
A little over an hour ago as of this writing, I
received a phone call that my brother had died. Jeff
had several problems pertaining to his liver, and a
while after he received a transplant he was diagnosed
with cancer in his bile ducts... this was in December
of 2004 and it prevented further surgeries. He and his
long-time girlfriend Liz got married shortly after,
and he was lucky enough to share his 6 month wedding
anniversary with her in June.
On Monday the 15th of August, 2005, he returned to
the hospital with intense dizziness and a fever which
was later discovered to have stemmed from an infected
pick line in his arm. He stayed in the hospital for
days as the staff tried various new antibiotics. His
friends and family attended in great numbers, and
though it was comforting, the new antibiotics didn't
work and on Monday the 22nd he was returned home to be
comfortable.
The conditions of his body affected his ability to
make much sense, but he still was able to call me by
name when I saw him yesterday. When asked last night
if he wanted to say goodnight to me, he said "No.",
and that's the last thing he said to me. Fortunately,
it's easy to interpret that in a positive way.
The urban exploration crowd have responded here:
http://www.uer.ca/forum_showthread.asp?fid=1&threadid=22279
Including his wife, Liz, here:
http://www.uer.ca/forum_showthread.asp?fid=&threadid=22279&currpage=6&pp#post112
After hearing about his death, I tried to make
myself cry and I couldn't, so I decided to remind
myself of him by looking at pictures. For whatever
reason, the first thing I decided to look at is
http://www.yip.org/oases . Jeff had a special hobby of
jumping in public fountains, which he even did in
several locations on trips in Europe. It was very sad
that his health failed, as he was unable to do this
for a few years.
It was then I thought of something way cooler than
crying.
You might think this is nuts, so I actually called
my buddy Wai today and got him to take some pictures
of me jumping in a nearby fountain. Now I hope you
know to take this seriously.
I'm asking all of my personal friends to please help
me with this tribute to my brother! Get a partner and
take each other's pictures! If you can't jump in a
fountain yourself, please try to take a picture of
someone who can! And please send this email on to:
-anyone who knew my brother
-anyone who enjoys the work of YIP
-anyone who enjoys urban exploration
-anyone who loves jumping in fountains
-anyone silly
-anyone gutsy
-hm, anyone
Here's the good part... please send digital copies
of your pictures to dasp...@yahoo.com (or
dasp...@hotmail.com). Try as hard as you can to only
send one picture per jumper and keep the filesize
reasonable (75 KB is plenty for a small picture). If
you record it on video, please only send a fun
screenshot unless you ask my permission first. Include
as many as possible of:
-something appropriate in the subject line of the
message so I know what it is
-the name of the jumper
-the name of the photographer
-the location of the fountain (city, state/province,
country)
-brief comments on the fountain (like the ones at
http://www.yip.org/oases)
-brief thoughts about Jeff or a kind word
If you're anything like me, try and do this quickly
after you get this email. I always forget things that
I put aside for any length of time.
Please DO NOT send condolences or excuses instead;
they aren't useful to me. Either do this or don't.
My intention to set up a tribute page for my brother
and his hobby with pictures of everyone who
participates, which I'll try to update frequently even
if I get a discouragingly low response! Seriously.
Also... if you've received this email directly from
me, I've added you to a mailing list specifically
about this page. You'll only receive messages if the
site receives a domain change or serious update. If
that bothers you, tell me and I'll take you off of it.
If it doesn't, notify me and I'll add you to it.
-KDC
Seth
posts here and by his celebrity in the UE scene.
But the last time I felt what I'm feeling right now is when my Mom threw my
childhood blankie in the dumpster when I was just a kid. It's hard to
describe it in words, but somehow the world changed right then, and it made
me very sad.
I can only imagine how you feel. Ninj's influence will ripple for many
generations into the future. I think it's safe to say that he changed the
world.
Thanks for posting here, liz.
-Seth... just totally stunned.
"liz" <footfo...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1124979967.3...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
televixen
Oases" project, www.wrftpb.com/oases/index.html is the "Urban Oases
Tribute" page from Jeff's brother, Kyle.
I encourage everyone to get wet for Jeff.
- Andrea (Jeff's friend and reader of nice things about him)
ashaanderson
>Hello.
>
> I wanted to let the community know that on
>Tuesday, Jeff died after a long and amazingly busy, happy, and
>life-filled battle with cancer.
Liz,
Thank you for posting the news. I am stunned to hear that Jeff has
passed away. He was always been one of my favorite people around here,
unique, interesting, passionate, and hilarious. He lived his truth,
encouraged others and was completely dedicated to indie publishing.
Plus he wrote a lot of great flames.
About 10 years ago I mentioned to him in an email that I had just been
diagnosed with Hep C. He was very supportive, adding that he also had
some liver problems and was taking time off to deal with it but it was
obvious that he wasn't giving in to self-pity or fear nor was he going
to let it get in his way. As it turns out, mine problem was treatable
but, even then, I got the sense that he was facing something
potentially far more serious.
"Now We're Cooking With Food" is one of my all-time favorite zine
publications. Jeff had a wonderful sense of the common ground and a
terrific sense of humor. I submitted a recipe but, no surprise, it
was too complicated to make the cut. His recipe "Lazy Man's Toast"
(omit the toasting part, margarine optional) is one of my personal
standbys. Also, what's not to love about two litres of vanilla ice
cream on a plate with a spoon stuck in the middle? The photo of this
lopsided, melting tower of goodness on the cover never ceases to drive
me to distraction. Yum.
I am so sorry Jeff is gone. He leaves a permanent empty place in my
heart but a lot of great memories, some excellent publications and a
tall measure that will always make me wonder and smile. Please take
care of yourself.
a.
http://www.ashabot.com
blog: http://www.ashabot.blogspot.com