My Year in zines: 2012

I don’t really use thins space anymore but I thought I would round out the year with this post.

2012 was a ridiculously active zine year for me. It started with creating the StolenSharpieRevolution.org site to be a companion to my book. The site includes a Zine Event listing calendar. In February I attended the first L.A. Zine fest and it was great! In March I attended the Chicago Zine Fest and it was really fun. We even had a Zine Organizer’s Event where we met with other zine event organizers to talk shop and I released my very first fiction zines (Brainscan #29) as a split with No More Coffee #4. In April I helped the fine folks at Zine Works run zine workshops at Coachella. I made some really great friends and got to see some great bands for free.

In May I opened a brick and mortar storefront and online shop in Portland, Oregon called Portland Button Works and zine distro. July was International Zine Month and I created a poster of events to do for each day of the month.and participated in the 24 hour zine thing. August had the Portland Zine Symposium that I helped organize and I hosted a bunch of guest at my house. In September I quit volunteering at the Independent Publishing Resource Centerafter over a decade of volunteering because I just didn’t have any more time for it after opening the Portland Button Works shop.

October and November were big months. I had been saving for a UK trip for a few years and somehow we had also planned for The Copy Scams, our zine themed pop-punk band, to record and tour. We wrote 3 new songs that we hope to release next year. I got to hang out with a lot of my awesome Uk friends and attend the Leeds Zine Fair and the SE London Zine Fest. I kept a bit of a travelogue on tumblr and put out issue #7 ofNobody Cares About You Stupid Zine Podcast, it’s all about trading zine.

So, now it is December and I did a bit of updating to the Etsy Team Zine and my own Etsy shop and changing it over to a Portland Button Works shop. I’m also offering free shipping Sunday and Monday  in my Etsy shop when you use the discount code: POSTMAN. I also hope to work on my new zine this week. It’s all typed up and I just need to do layout. I also just signed up for the 2013 Chicago Zine Fest! Hope to see you there.

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Nobody Cares About You Stupid Zine Podcast #3 is available for download!

The new issue of Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast is ready here or through itunesor other podcatchers.

In this Episode of Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast, Derek Neuland and Alex Wrekk discuss the book Fanzines by Teal Triggs and several issues surrounding it including copyright and etiquette as they interview Ramsey Beyer (illustrator and List zine) Amber Forrester (http://www.hello-amber.com/) and Jerianne Thompson (librarian and editor of Zine World)

 

Fanzines book, nobody cares about your stupid zine podcast #2

I got my “contributor” copy of Fanzines in the mail pretty quickly. I pick it up and look at it and then get angry and have to put it back down. There are numerous errors. Some may seem nit-picky like the version of Stolen Sharpie Revolution she used is from 2002, not 2003 as stated. Some errors are much worse. I also found that there is a screen shot from my housemate Marc’s zine review site Zine Thug. He says that permission was asked, but he stated he would like a contributor copy. He has not received one yet. I was also flipping through the pages when I was on a skype chat with my friend Steve Larder and stumbled across one of his illustrations for the cover of the UK zine yearbook. He had no idea it was there.

In more exciting news! There is a new issue of Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast!

In the second installment of Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast, Alex Wrekk is joined by Derek Neuland. We find out who Derek is, how he got into zines, and much more.  We also find out what Alex has been up to since the first podcast, which included traveling to many countries, touring the United States with 5 folks from the UK, and much more.  They also discuss their experiences organizing the 2010 Portland Zine Symposium, their excitement for the 2011 Chicago Zine Fest, and much more.

You can listen to you it here, or download it into itunes or your favorite podcatcher.

Links for the show:

Chicago Zine Fest
Copy Scams
Overglued
Portland Zine Symposium
Roberts Street Social Centre
Small World Buttons
Zines On Toast

Stumptown Vegans podcast and how I grow hops!

So, a few weeks ago I was a host on the Stumptown Vegans podcast .Well, the show is up in all its sugar crashy-ness. Go here if you want to listen.

And for photos. Here’s the trellis I made for my Cascade Hop plants. The twine is attached to an old box springs I use in my garden one one end and to the upstairs bathroom window. this should give them more lights, make a canope at the back door, and be super easy to harvest by just tossing down the twine!

This was a few weeks ago. I'll post a new photo soon!

looking up the side of my house...noitce the plumbing on the outside of the house.

Paul and I are headed up to the Riverhouse for some time together before I head up there for the weekend with whoever wants to come.

radio, pizza, cats and plants…

Last week I did two podcast recordings and neither of them were for my own Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast, although Marc and I do have plans to record another soon. I was on the Stumptown Vegans podcast with Jess my sister Webly where they stuffed me and a few others with mass quantities of  vegan baked goods until we wanted to brush our teeth and eat a whole field of kale. The show’s not up yet but I’ll let you know when it is. Here’s a picture of my sister trying to figure out what best to attach the mic to in order to pass it around. We eventually settled on a banana, but I like this shot of a mixer:

testing!

Blue and I were also on Nerd Report Radio with Emily and Sabrina talking about the Portland Zine Symposium. It was pretty rad and you can listen to it here. about 10 minutes before we were supposed to be on the air Blue, Emily, and I got stuck in the elevator. It wasn’t so bad that we were stuck on the 9th floor, but the fact that the elevator dropped about 6 inches terrified me! I immediately grabbed Blue’s hand and wondered if I put my bicycle helmet on it would help with the fall. We were stuck for at least 10 minutes and got to push the “HELP” button. I also noticed this:

If you can't see the caption says "when flashing help is on the way" Well, the light flashed and we were saved!

I got a bulb of fennel from my Organics To You box and wasn’t sure what to do with it. So, I sauteed it with onions and garlic and tossed it on top of a pizza with homemade pesto.

As I'm a vegan and Paul is an omni we have real cheese/vegan cheese pizza. This was my first experience with Daiya chesse and I think it's pretyt good. A bit like velveta in a gross way but I miss the stretchy-ness so I enjoyed it.

On to other weird things. So, there are these two cats that live at our house. They aren’t my cats. I’m not a cat person but I adore these cats. Sometimes I think I spent more time hanging out with them than most of my other housemates.  I worry that I’m becoming a crazy cat lady when I catch myself talking to them or letting Jackie sleep on my bed. Well, the other night OJ busted into my rook with his thick skull, jumped on the bed and proceeded to drink out of the pint glass of water by the bed. I had just changed his water the other day but apparently he really wanted to drink of the pint glass and/or disturb me while I was sleeping

he really wanted the water I guess.

cat tongue! OJ would drink drink drink and hyperventilate and shake his head and have to go up for air! Silly cat! Also check out of CCRadio. It even has a shortwave option.

I spent this morning working in my yard. I dug up a bunch of my irises to plant a bunch of native plants that my sister got me for my birthday. Then I dug up even more of the irises and mixed up the roots and replanted them. I’m excited to see what colors got placed where when they come up next year! I’ll post more photos soon of the yard but for now, here’s one of my many foxgloves:

foxgloves make me happy.

Nobody cartes about your stupid podcast woes and an unintentional zine tour…

I just found a little time to sit down and take a listen to the interviews I had recorded and hoped to finally put together for a new episode of Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast. I had been editing it on my old computer before I left for the Uk and France in May. My old computer was dying a slow death and I transferred stuff to my new computer. Well, the audio sounds all messed up with weird gaps in the middle of interviews. I’m really bummed because I think most of it is unusable. It might be that I really just don’t like sound editing but I want a good sounding podcast, not one that sounds like it was recorded in a bathroom with a Fisher Price microphone. Gr.

I had some really great interviews too so I’ll see what I can salvage when I’m less annoyed about it. We had some great interviews at the Zine Librarian (un)Conference from the spring.  Marc and I interviewed Jerrianne from Zine World and Zine Wiki. She got Marc to tell a great story about the first time they met. I interviewed Milo from QZAP (Queer Zine Archive Project) he also gave me a cool shirt that says “Zinesters do it on the photcopier” I also did a bit of investigative journalism to try and uncover just what exactly happened to ZAPP in their mysterious disappearance a few years ago. I interviewed a few people and the audio is semi-rubbis. It was on the steps of the Hugo House and there are all these birds tweeting in the background.

So, do I start all over again with new interviews? I need to get Marc to sit down again and record some stuff. We decided that we are never ever going to apologize for the lateness of our podcast. It’s a podcast about zines, what do you want from us?

A few months ago I was riding my bike home and rolled up onto my sidewalk where I saw my old housemate and old zine friend Steve. You may remember him from Journalsong zine. I did a split zine with him and Lisa from Three A.M. years ago. He was playing music with someone down the street and was walking by my house. He said it looks good since I fixed it up and then said he liked the podcast and asked when we were going to do another one. I asked him when he is going to do another zine. He then said “so, there isn’t going to be another one?” That wasn’t my point, my point is that my zines don’t come out regularly and neither will the podcast! I want to do it, I just don’t want to do it half assed.

So, I started thinking about my upcoming trip and how it is a bit like a tour. I didn’t really intend for it to be a tour, but maybe I should. Paul and Webly and I are going to Chicago the weekend of October 9th. Maybe I should see if there is any zine stuff going on there? Then I’m headed to Halifax for my zine residency and the Halifax Zine Fest where I’ll teach a workshop on zine distribution. From there I head to Toronto then I think I’m going  to Ottawa for a zine reading at a book store on October 30. After that I’ll be at Canzine in Toronto on November 1st where I have been asked to do a reading the night before. Maybe I should read something spooky for Halloween!

After that I have a week between Canzine and the Richmond Zine Fest. I’m thinking of visiting NYC, maybe I should do a zine reading there? Anybody else have any ideas?

2009 has totally been a crazy zine year for me. I’m really excited about it. I just wish I could get a new zine done! i have about 3 of them in the works.

Etsy Storque, Podcast, punk 7″s and our new house band

First things first! The Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast has had over 100 listeners! At the IPRC staff meeting the other day someone asked Marc and I if we were going to put our podcast out on a schedule like monthly. We shrugged, laughed and said that it is a podcast about zines, how could we possibly have a schedule? You can make fun of us if we ever start apologising for our podcast coming out late.

The Brainscan Audio zine that Paul and I put together for the Fall of Autumn Podcast is featured in this Etsy Storque Guest Curator article by the people from Cinders Gallery. That was nice of them! I remember packing orders for them when I used to work at a distro. Maybe I should get in touch with seeing if they will carry my zines. The audio zine is called Pre-existing conditions and has me reading sort pieces from the never ending up coming zine that I have been working on for over 3 years. Paul blended his music in with my reading and i think it sounds great. I plan on actually finishing the zine at the Anchor Archive Zine Residency in October. Paul has already written most of the sound track…. now I need too do my part.

Speaking of music, last night we ended up having a house party with all 5 of our housemates plus Jess, who is sort of an honorary housemate. It all started when Paul played a 7″ by Scared of Chaka and that damn Cerrado song that gets stuck in his head. At that time it was just Paul, Amanda and I. We proceeded to move through our 7″ collection of crappily recorded 90’s punk records. Jess showed up since we were going to go to first Thursday but we decided to finish a bottle of wine instead.

More 90’s punk all on 7″ and we were remarking about how zine like they are, with bad artwork and inside jokes. PUD, F.Y.P., NAR, Crimpshrine, Prapaghandi, The Prima Donnas, Cringer, Monsula, Teen Titans, etc. Such good stuff!  We miss 90’s punk! The we wondered how much it would cost to put out the records now and it turns out to be ridiculously expensive.

Dan showed up with some beer, we opened another bottle of wine and all decided to start a house band. Then while listening to lo-fi pnk recordings we filled a page with bad (and a few good!) song titles. One being “New York Destiny” and anothr being “New York Density” New York Destiny is the term we used to knowing someone or being someone who happens to be in NYC and runs into the most unlikely person. We all know someone that has happened too.

So, ya. Our house band is called “The Mezz” for reasons that escape me. Jess is going to have Paul teach her to play drums and we haven’t got the rest sorted. I think Paul and Marc are gonna play guitar though. Overall it was a productive night and I’m glad I didn’t go to 1st Thursday!

Here’s a picture of me:

hello there!

and here’s a photo of Jackie looking like a stumbling drunk slouched against the wall.

hello mr. slumpy!

Dinner tonight!

It was a beautiful day in Portland this morning! Paul and I rode downtown to the post office and to meet someone to drop of buttons around 11. We were craving the green sauce at El Grillo so we headed there for a burrito and a Negra Modelo… when we got there we foudn a paper sign for the same place with a new name! The menu was a stripped down menu of El Grillo and Paul and I started blankly at the new owners.

They insited that they still had the same recipes and the rice and beans were vegan. They also said that they were going to have vegan black beans too. which is great because I prefer black beans. But it was still sort of weird that this Portland Institution next to Mary’s club was gone. At leas the salsa verde was still there and that’s what we were craving.

lots o taps

The weather was getting a bit sketchy by then and we headed to the pearl to the Deschutes brewery. They always have some fantastic stuff on tap that is only available at the brewery. Paul had a Belgian and I had the Night Rider stout on Nitro… not only was it on Nitro, it was a coffee stout! I guess it is basically the obsidian stout with coffee! It smelled so good and tasted great. Totally smooth and rich. I took a long time to drink it. Paul drank the Belgian and a beer that was 40% spelt and reminded me of a hefe in the time I took to drink my one beer! We had our ass kicked by the Oregonian crossword but we managed to finish the NYT… with a little help from the internets on my phone.

yummy goodness in proper glassware!

Then we rode home… up the big hill on Interstate. I realized that this was the first time this year that I rode up that hill. I feel really out of shape.

I got to work making buttons, packing orders, writing e-mails and being stoked that 50 people listened to our zine podcast!

Then it was time for some dinner. I made some brown rice with vegetable stock, roasted some yummy Brussel sprouts and cooked a bit of chard in some red wine vinegar and served them up in these cute little tray type plates that I inherited from my grandmother. We have been on a brussel sprout and asparagus kick lately. We also talked about gettign Oreganics to You again. It was a lot of fun to get randon veggies and then figure out what to do with them. Then again, we have a farmer’s market down the street from us in a few months. maybe we should wait and just start doing that again. Anyway, here’s our meal tonight:

sprouts, chard and brown rice

I keep meaning to edit down the images from the meal Jess and I made the other night with the vegan wine pairing. It was pretty great. I keep meaning to document our wine adventures. I’m such a novice when it comes to wine but Jess is really helping me figure some stuff out… it also helps that she’s a beer and wine steward!

Marc and I talked about our podcast tonight and some ideas for future episodes and maped out a bit of what we plan to do at thezine librarian un-conference. I’m really stoked because with the people there we could get 3-4 shows out of all the zine talk that will be happenning! I’m looking forward to getting better at editing too.

I also have some more photos of my yard… and some of the squirrels from my yard! Plus, it is March and I have to gush about the multiple anniversaries Paul and I celebrate this month.

Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast #1

My housemate and zine librarian extraordinaire, Mark Parker and I put together our first zine podcast! We even got Androo Robinson to write us a silly theme song that is guaranteed to get stuck in your head.

The podcast is about a half hour long and consists of zine news and events and the easiest interview idea ever, we interviewed each other about zines! Check out the blog here and the actual libsyn podcast account here.

It’s a go!

Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast #1 is up! Go here and listen to it!