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As I write this, I'll have yet another birthday in a few days. How old am I? Old enough to remember when Thundercats used to be run on local television every day after school. Old enough that when I was in eighth grade it was big news when we had a Commodore 64 computer in our classroom (we used it mainly to play Decathlon–I still have joystick-shaped scars on my hands from that). Old enough that I've been writing for two decades now. Heck, the zine which spawned this web site is in its eighth volume–my Zine Age, akin to the concept of Dog Years, is ancient. In Zine Years, I am an old fucking man–probably that old man in the stained raincoat who hangs out at the local arcade chatting up the young girls who come in after school. Zining is predominantly a young kids game. As people get older, they tend to stop putting out zines, for a variety of reasons: loss of angst, career, relationship, and other ‘grown up' things taking up more of their time, a loss of faith. For whatever reason, a lot of people give up their zines once they grow up. Of course, the really great zines tend to transcend childhood and just keep going on and on; the zines you've heard of, the famous ones, are no longer being produced by kids, if they ever were. I wonder how many of them were like me, and didn't even start their zine until they were 23 or 24? There's a big difference between something that you do as a sixteen-year-old and something you begin in your mid-twenties. The schism between your everyday circumstances as a teenager and your everyday circumstances as a young adult is huge; the difference between age 23 and age 27 isn't so huge, generally. Or at least so it has been for me. But let's get back to the point: I am old. I know I am old because a few times recently I have been referred to as a ‘big name' in zining and a ‘famous zine publisher'. Who knew? I thought I was toiling in obscurity–no, really!–so being referred to in this way startled me. It doesn't mean I'm famous. It just means I've now been doing my zine for so long I'm part of the landscape. It's just assumed that there will be new issues of The Inner Swine from time to time, because there has been for frickin' eight years now, which, in Zine Years, is like forever. This raises some questions for me. Like, am I too old to be putting out a zine? Is there such a thing? How long do I intend to keep doing it? If I ever achieve any kind of mainstream writing success, will that have a chilling effect on my zine activities? I've speculated in the past that mainstream success for a writer kills the zine(s) they produce–was that just your usual Jeff-related-bullshit, or was I on-target with myself? And finally, is it wrong that my wardrobe hasn't changed significantly since I was in seventh grade? I mean, I actually still wear clothes from when I was in seventh grade. Does that make me a bad person? (Recently Legal Counsel [CENSORED BY ORDER OF WIFE] attempted to upgrade my wardrobe with some guerilla shopping at The Gap. This backfired because I only wear one of the pairs of shorts she bought me, and those exclusively with my Converse Chucks, which she hates. This unmitigated failure has slowed the influx of Gap-related clothing into my closet, thank goodness.) I don't really believe that age has anything to do with the quality of a zine, though you do get quite a bit of reverse ageism when kids find out you're like fifteen years older than they are–they feel like you're putting out a zine to be ‘cool'. No, if I were wearing a pair of Converse One-Stars and carrying around a skateboard, I'd be trying to be ‘cool'. I think the main problem with putting out a zine for so long and at such a decrepit age is the simple fact that you're going to be repeating yourself. The Inner Swine has never been known for its groundbreaking experimentation, but as each issue lumbers towards completion more and more of it is pretty static as certain parts of each issue become regular features, and become, in essence, stagnant receptacle to be filled with new batches of words every few months. I know I need about 800 words of Mr. Mute! every issue. That kind of knowledge can stifle flexibility, because I'm not just exuberantly creating and then seeing what fits, I'm laboriously filling an order. Maybe. Maybe I'm exuberantly filling an order. In other words, the problem with being older and wiser and still putting out a zine is that it's become routine. You know all the moves. Nothing's shocking. A few years ago when I started to feel like putting out three issues a year was too easy, I upped TIS to a quarterly in order to challenge myself a little. Maybe the time will come for a more dramatic shakeup. Like what? I'm thinking midget clowns, lots of haiku poetry, and nude photos of myself. Or maybe a multimedia experience, open the zine and one of those audio chips like you find in greeting cards has my voice, singing self-composed songs, over and over again. I've obviously got my work cut out for me, and I'm not a young man any more, you know. I get sleepy. I guess the final question is, will mainstream success kill TIS? I mean, if I sell a book and it sells like hotcakes and I win all sorts of awards and end up on Larry King or Charlie Rose being fellated by their warm, puckery mouths, will I be embarrassed when they pull out issue 7(1) of TIS and demand that I explain myself? More importantly, will people stop reading my zine if I got successful? Some might, the zine scene being obsessed with ‘cred'. Then again, if I'm on the fucking bestseller lists, maybe I'd gain just as many new readers, so it might be a wash. And does it matter? When I put out issue 1(1) of TIS, there was no audience waiting for it. No one was reading it, as a matter of fact. It didn't stop me. So if people stop reading it some time in the future, who cares? I'll just keep photocopying the damn thing. All right, now I'm exhausted and must take my dose of Ensure and be put down for my nap. Wake up! The column is over! You can go home now! And send your complaints about this column to the usual place. Jeff |
August 5, 2002