Ramp it Up!

About the issue:

Here is where is starts and it started with a death of a puppy. I guess this makes me the John Wick of zines? Except instead of bullets I use words and instead of cars I drive metaphors. Anyway, we had a puppy that passed unexpectedly and our family reeled in the loss. Coping included telling the story of the loss again and again to family and friends. Through this retelling, I noticed the story began to hold redemptive qualities and in fact there became a healing power to the narrative. Inspired and still looking for more connection I began the friendzine as a way to reach out and prod my friends to play storytime with me. Did it work? Are we playing yet?

My first idea was to painstakingly tell a few friends what I wanted to do and wait for them to contribute to the first issue. Then, I decided to just start playing the game with them and not tell them what was happening. Just play. People will catch up and it was true. The Fans for Feeding Trevor moniker lasted only one issue as the new Feeding Friendzine concept was too money to pass up. The new name is just fun to say aloud. Try it. See?

I remember using our old printer/scanner for these copies. This issue was simple because I hand drew and wrote the whole issue on one sheet of paper and scanned / printed both sides (which included feeding the one-sided copy back into the printer to get a double-sided copy). Don't ask me to go back and do this again.

I have many people to thank for inspiring me in this endeavor. In particular, there is a friend who told me about Christopher Isherwood, a novelist who wrote the play "I Am a Camera", which I haven't read (but did read almost his entire catalog of prose including "A Single Man" - run, don't walk to read this now. I will wait) but the fetching concept of the play is how one can be a camera with the shutter wide open to the world, passively recording and not judging. I saw the scanner screen of my printer as that camera and began throw shit down and press the capture button again and again to instill this value I admire in the best authors. I wanted this quality for myself when I start working as a counselor in my own right some day. To see. To capture, listen, and record without judgement.