Cryptic messages written on the sidewalk. Vaguely unsettling black-and-white pen sketches. Strange things found with the daily newspaper.
These things fall under the purview of “The Handshake Drug” creator Jeffrey Hertz. Hertz created the pamphlet (known as a ’zine) that features his poetry, drawings and short essays, and is distributed, without permission, in Daily Lobo newspaper boxes.
“I thought it was almost like a statement to put them in the Daily Lobo boxes, like an independent voice rising up,” he said.
“Rather than constantly being subject to an objective approach through the Daily Lobo or some kind of daily newspaper, I wanted to hear somebody taking a stand on things.”
This was not Hertz’ first distribution method choice, but he found it to be the simplest one.
“I’d rather have distribution personal, rather than sticking it in a box and having people pick it up,” he said. “I’d rather give out 10 to a person here, 10 to a person here, and have that person give out 10, and have that person give out 10, so it’s always hand-to-hand and always face-to-face. I really believe in that contact.”
The ’zine is promoted through a guerrilla-marketing style that’s somewhat intentionally bewildering. Hertz chalked the ’zine’s title all over campus, with no explanation of what it is or where to find it — just “The Handshake Drug.”
“I’m not saying, ‘Pick up The Handshake Drug.’ It’s almost like subliminal messaging,” he said. “I keep seeing people walking around, and they look down, and it’s almost like they keep looking down, and they’re not necessarily completely soaking it in, but that name, ‘The Handshake Drug,’ is slowly being drilled into their head.”
Hertz said he got the idea to write these mysterious messages around campus from spray-paint art around Albuquerque, and especially 516 gallery’s StreetArts festival at the end of last year.
“I really wanted to make the world my canvas,” he said. “Obviously through these ’zines, I’m limited to a certain amount of space. So I want to expand my art to a bigger canvas. I was trying to find a way to do that that wasn’t illegal.”
Contact is a major theme in Hertz’ work, beginning with the title of his ’zine. The name “The Handshake Drug” is taken from the title of a Wilco song describing a drug deal, Hertz said, but he felt the phrase had wider implications.
“I feel like anything could be seen as a drug,” he said. “That’s everything that you put into your body, anything that you can read, anything that you see on television. I consider Facebook to be a drug. Anything addictive in quality and manipulating your behavior can be a drug. In an ironic way, I want this to be a drug.”
The title has a second implication for Hertz, conjuring an image that he finds powerful.
“It’s that idea of passing on, the exchange, from a handshake,” he said. “I love the image that it strikes up, ‘The Handshake Drug’ … I find hands to be a very powerful symbol and a handshake to be a very powerful embrace.”
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Hertz’ interest in human contact led him to delete his Facebook page, and he said the social-networking site is one of the things that bothers him in today’s culture.
“My biggest pet peeve is definitely Facebook,” he said. “I saw people abusing it, as a social-networking tool. I kept seeing people hiding behind a computer screen and poking each other, with that tool that they have, poking each other rather than sitting down over a cup of coffee, or actually having a handshake.”
This ties in to the theme of “The Handshake Drug’s” third issue. Each issue revolves around a particular theme, most of which would be considered “radical,” politically speaking. The third issue, “Wanna Know the Meaning of Your Life? Google It,” deals with themes of alienation in a high-tech society.
Other themes include environmentalism, addressed in an issue, “Just Because the World Itches Doesn’t Mean We Need To Scratch It,” and fast food, in an issue called, “We Don’t Eat Just To Shit.” Hertz addresses the consumerism of the Christmas season in the most recent issue, “When Capitalism Fingers Your Wallet, You Can’t Help Splurging.”
“Right before the holidays, I kept hearing my friends and family saying, ‘Oh, I’ve gotta go get this for this person. I’ve gotta go get that,’” he said. “It’s like this feeling, this obligation, that you’ve gotta go to the store and buy something for your loved one in order to prove that you love them. I thought ‘Gosh, I’m sick and tired of hearing people say that.’”
This motivated Hertz to find an alternative (and free) way to express his feelings during the holidays.
“I wrote poems for my friends, my family, and they appreciated it more than any other gift I’ve ever given them in the past,” he said.
The ’zine, although distributed at UNM, has spread to other parts of the city, Hertz said.
“I hear from somebody that, ‘Oh yeah, I saw your ’zine at a house party down in the South Valley on somebody’s fridge,’” he said. “ …. I’m striving for these things to spread and to make their way through the world, but hand-to-hand.”
“The Handshake Drug” accepts submissions from anyone who wants to contribute, although the four issues have been produced exclusively by Hertz. He includes blank pages at the back of every issue to encourage people to produce their own art or comment on “The Handshake Drug,” and he said his goal with the work is to get more people to express themselves.
“I feel like so many UNM students, maybe, they struggle, feeling more like they’re a number than they’re a name,” he said. “And that’s what you go through going to a major university. I think now I’ve done that. I’ve taken matters into my own hands, and I’ve stepped out from being a number, and I’m being a name. … I’m trying to encourage people to step out with a voice, and step out from the crowd, and try to do something. Try to say something.”
