Doing, doing, doing.
Meanwhile, Kara and I had already signed up to table at two fairs based around DIY wares and publishing, one in Buffalo and one in Rochester. In preparation, Kara baked cookies, packed up all her handmade bags, and I made a third zine dedicated to stuff I've found on the ground and on telephone poles, entitled 'One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Zine'. I spent an entire evening at Staples and left with three phone books' worth of paper in a box that we would have to eventually, and promptly, cut, fold, and bind.
Friday, March 19th: Because of the recent extra cash I came across, Kara and I were able to plan carelessly before Friday when we left on train to Buffalo. Because there was no train that left early enough to get us there by 11 on the 19th, we had to leave the day before, which wasn't a problem because it's never too soon to leave. We spent the night before watching a ton of Scrubs while cutting and folding the remainder of our around 700+ pieces of copied paper. The next day, we caught an Amtrak train to Buffalo. We waited for a half hour for a bus that never came and then paid for two tickets that were $20 more each than they were said to be online. The guy behind the window went out of his way to chuckle and say, "Weekend prices." As we waited up by the tracks, the wind was so fierce that it actually picked my hoodie up and blew my ticket up the steel. A guy around our age sat down on a bench and started drinking a tall-neck bottle of beer. He was wearing a beer brand t-shirt and had only packed beer in his pack. If he were much older than me, that would be viewed as alcoholism, but because of his youth, it's just kids being kids in America. It was only around 1. The train ride was smooth and comfortable and only a little over five hours. I mostly listened to music on my headphones and read a book, peering out the window at the fields and neighborhoods I'd never see otherwise, gone from sight in only a second or two. Our first order of business was to walk to a nearby vegan-friendly restaurant called Merge. As we started our walk, we noticed a scary amount of bro douchebags and scene girls, only to realize very quickly through a scalper that Lil' Wayne was playing an arena nearby. The walk was made pretty unbearable by how ugly that part of Buffalo was and the inconvenient weight of the turquoise suitcase we brought with us to carry our 200+ zines, Kara's two dozen cookies, and her collection of homemade bags. We got there, though, and immediately realized that it was way swankier than just about anywhere else we'd ever eaten in our entire lives. It was next door to an elite place called the Snooty Fox Lounge, where two old women in expensive coats stood and talked about whatever rich old women talk about. It was instantly uncomfortable walking into Merge. The pretty girl at the door told us there was a twenty-five minute wait for seats, but there were two bar seats open that we could take. So we did that and quickly sped through the dimly lit rows of tables packed with people whose outfits looked more expensive than our train tickets combined. We looked over the menu, which had more fancy alcoholic drinks than foods and was also designated for certain times and meals throughout the day. It was fifteen minutes or more before we figured out what we were getting.
The yuppie all-natural restaurant we ate it, Merge.
We settled for some limeade drinks, and each a small order of vegan mac and cheese and mashed potatoes. The waiter juiced the lime and made the drink himself and then poured us each a glass of water from an old wine bottle. He even placed a candle on the table and lit it. The portions we eventually got were very tiny for their price, but still really yummy. Our limeade drinks were really strong and delicious. It was some kind of mixture of real lime juice, maple syrup, soda water, and ice. It was delicious and like nothing I'd ever tasted before. A guy played acoustic music on a stage while everyone ate. No one clapped after his songs. He played a cover of that song that goes, "This magic moment... when your lips are close to mine..." that immediately reminds me of The Sandlot. Two old people dressed like the member and wife of a member of Congress sat next to us. We got out of there as quickly as we could and started walking to the bus stop. Kara stole a fancy cloth napkin, which make excellent patching fabric. Half a mile away was a bus top for the 8, which goes up some of Main Street, literally the main street, which cuts through all of Buffalo to Amherst and beyond. From a broad exploration of the local mass transit's website, I was pretty sure we'd have to take the 8 and then get on the 48 for the second half of the ride up Main Street to our hotel. But when we asked the driver, a really nice black man, he told us to get on the 41. When he dropped us off at our next bus, he got out and asked the driver, apparently his BFF of sorts, to get us to the Red Roof Inn. We had never seen such happy bus drivers before. That second driver wound up going off-route and dropping us off right in front of the hotel, too. It was awesome. We checked in and got into our room. We watched Bill Maher and started folding my first zine, which we hadn't even started yet the night before. Halfway through, we got hungry again and went to a nearby pizza pub called Santora's for some late-night snacks. We got something called Buffalo Sticks, which was a twelve-inch circle of dough glazed in Frank's buffalo sauce, and some fries. We asked if they could do the dough knots without butter and they said no. The next motel room over made a lot of noise. I peeked out through the window and saw that a pack of wild bros were moving around outside, grunting and stomping like the Neanderthals in heat. We went to sleep way later than we should have.
At 10:30, I woke up to Kara telling me to get up. Our alarm clock never went off. Instead, it just blinked a light. We rushed up and brushed our teeth, took our pills, ate a bagel each, and then called a cab, since neither buses were running regularly enough to get us to the 5th Annual Small Press Book Fair. The guy on the phone told us he'd be there in fifteen minutes. We went out and waited for five after ten more minutes of preparation in our room. A plain silver van pulled up and a cranky old man behind the wheel named Irv asked us if we were the ones who called for a ride. He told us he had been waiting and was about to leave. He sounded pissed. We told him we had been waiting right there, but he still sounded mad at us. He weaved in and out of traffic, flipped someone off, and spoke on the phone with another driver. His ringtone was the theme music to Halloween. He looked and sounded just like Ron Paul, oddly enough. He grew on us and, I think, we grew on him, too during the ride, though. He got us to the place, 453 Porter, what was once a church from the looks of it, and charged us $30. When we got inside, we checked in with the one guy who had run it the last five years. He helped us find our table, all the way in the back up a sloped wooden floor. When you first walked in, you saw a giant, ancient pipe organ towering overhead. Some of the windows were still stain-glass designs of Biblical characters and scenes. It was really cold inside, but we were luckily seated directly in front of a radiator, in between a gothy girl selling over-priced block print stamps onto stock paper and a Canadian group of over-done hipster artists representing a printing company called Wowee Zonk. At first, we just laid out our zines with a shitty handwritten sign saying mine were $1.50 each and Kara's were $1 each or $1.50 with a vegan cookie. A while later, Kara put out her bags, which ranged from $2-14. We met and talked to a lot of people. They were all really interesting and, maybe not coincidentally, Canadian. We waited a while to take turns walking around and browsing everyone else's table. It started off slow, though the place was literally packed from the moment the doors were open to the public. People of all ages were there, from the very young to the very old, and we quickly discovered that the 5th Annual Buffalo Small Press Fair wasn't exactly just DIY punk stuff like we had assumed. There were plenty of old men who ran legitimate publishing companies and printing presses. So not everyone there was exactly our target audience. Regardless, our table got a lot of attention from a little bit of everyone, including other vendors whose things we thought were way more impressive than our own.
It's an awkward thing, selling your work. And not just because we're against stuff like capitalism or marketing. Just the whole process of it is weird. Starting with the question of 'How much should we charge?' we're hurdled into uncomfortable, foreign territory. What we eventually decided was something like this: (Cost of materials) + (Amount of time invested in creation x $1) + $1. Since we get our copies for free, the first part of the equation equates to zero; the second part is usually a half hour, equating roughly to 50¢. Get it? We think that's pretty fair. So did a few other people who were surprised at how cheap our things were being sold for. Secondly, sitting there and grinning, wondering whether or not you should make eye contact with each and every person who walks by your table or glances at your stuff for even a second, is horrendously weird. Like, at what point are you trying to charm them into buying something from you or just making small talk? You feel like a dirty car salesman when describing your zine as simply and sensationalistically as possible. Thirdly, there's always the things that rush through your mind as they silently pick something of yours up and start flipping through the pages. You try not to stare, but can't help it. You try to focus on their facial expression and decipher what they could possible be thinking, what page they're stopping on, and then you start doubting your work altogether for no real logical reason. The worst part is when they put it down without saying a word, dissatisfied and disinterested. It happens a lot. But so does the opposite. In which case, if they decide to read some of it intently right in front of you after buying it, you are sent into the same confused panic and self-consciousness you are when they look at it before buying it or putting it down. By the end of the event, at 5, Kara hadn't sold any bags or change purses, but she did sell a dozen cookies and got picked up by a cute woman from Toronto who runs a DIY zine distro in Canada called TwelveOhTwo; she came up and bought ten copies of each of Kara's zines. I was really happy for Kara and she was really smiley all over about it, too. Altogether, Kara and I made over $70 that day. I bought a really beautiful piece of art by a beautiful girl tabling her crafts of a pigeon on a telephone wire with an atlas background. I got a zine called Contemporary Dude Theory, a complex, satirical social theory on Dudes that made me laugh out loud throughout the day as I read through it. I got one of Kate's zines from the TwelveOhTwo table, because Kate makes the best zines I've found so far and I have a total crush on her. And we also decided to pick up a zine about food aptly titled EAT. The cover to it was partly made of DIY 'paper' composed of garlic and onion skins.
As usual, the table next to us got a ton of attention, even though when asked what one of their screen-printed shirts 'meant' by a woman, the hipster artist replied, "I dunno." Their artwork was great, I even bought one of their books. But sitting there, I was still baffled by everyone's automatic interest in their material. And then it hit me: My generation has established a subconscious and natural aversion to words! At least, that was my theory. People would stop by our table, abundant with black and white photocopies of real stories and lots of words, and would turn away and light up at the sight of their neon-colored monsters and non-sensical, meaningless hipster art. I read in the Dude Theory zine something about 'empty novelty', and found it to be the perfect term to describe stuff like theirs and the Chelsea Dirck bullshit that reigned supreme at the other zine festival we attended. Kids now have an attraction to instant images that require no interpretation and only a second of their attention span. I wonder if books will die altogether one day.
Everyone we met was really nice and it was a great experience. After, we called Irv and got a ride to Amy's Place for a celebratory dinner. The waitress we had seemed fed up with the world, but I guess that's part of the territory when you're a waitress. I got The Biff again and Kara got some lentil thing. It was all ridiculously good and not expensive at all. We hung out there for a bit and soaked up the dirty diner atmosphere that they relish in there, counting the money we made, messily folded together mostly in ones like a stripper's night of tips. We shared a big piece of vegan carrot cake that filled us painfully and then called Irv back up for a ride to the motel. We went to sleep pretty early that night, but had to get up even earlier.
Graffiti in the men's bathroom at Amy's Place: "YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL". Great location.
Sunday, March 20th, Irv stuck to his promise and was there right at 6AM to pick us up and bring us to the train station on Dick Road. I tipped Irv and he bid us a farewell with an enthusiastic, "Thanks a million!" for a $10 tip. We had some time to kill after we got to Rochester, so our first order of business was to go get some food and coffee at an all-vegan gluten-free bakery in town called Eco Bella. It was a mile and a half walk through a really ugly looking part of town into a really cute part of town separated by an on-ramp called the South Wedge. We went in and were greeted by a really friendly, chipper woman and a large case filled with a wide and eclectic selection of baked goods. We talked to the woman briefly. She started, operates, and bakes all by herself for the place and has been doing so for over three years. She's been vegan for a while. She was so nice. We proceeded to buy several pounds of baked goods for our breakfast (a cinnamon bun, a blueberry doughnut, et cetera) and a coffee. We talked to her a lot in between trying to figure out the plans for the day. A half hour before the zine fest was supposed to start a mile and a half away, we opted to call a cab instead so we'd have enough time to make a new sign using some cardboard we had. Twenty minutes went by and no cab had shown up. So I called back and the man said, "They'll be there in one minute." Twenty minutes later, still no cab. So we ended up walking. We got a good view going over a bridge and saw a Chinese restaurant that had taken up an old KFC. We walked through a suburban neighborhood into a nice block of apartments that we later learned were subsidized housing. We found the Flying Squirrel Community Center, which was a renovated elk's lodge co-operatively run and funded by a group of activists. We were introduced to a cute woman in glasses who helped us figure out where we could table. We were placed on the first floor, right across from Kate from New Paltz, who was tabling her No Better Than Apples zines. I immediately bought two issues from her, talked a little, and then bought a zine from the man next to her about how to make chiptune music using a hacked Gameboy and LSDJ, while talking about 8-bit music at length.
I saw a familiar face from Syracuse, a guy named Chernesky, who was obviously under the influence of something or just hung over like he claimed. He sat with a friend and later harassed me with a camera, asking ridiculous and personal questions about my sex life and zines. We met a lot more interesting people at this one than the day before. This one was more centered around DIY. Everyone was really nice and had funny and interesting things to say back when I started conversations with them. Kara eventually sold out of her cookies, which had somehow garnered tons of attention. People literally had started showing up and asking about them after they were sold out. Several people did zine trades with us and Kara sold a cute change purse to a shy little girl. My third zine was a big hit and by the end of the day had almost sold out. A lot of people also bought up my Denny's issue. I kept warning everyone that my zines were really scattered and abrasive, for some reason becoming more and more self-conscious about the material in my zines as the day went on. Kara and I took turns browsing. The second floor had even more stuff tabled. A few faces from the day before were there, like the EAT people and the Dude Theory group, who were also selling crow magnets, of which I had to buy at least one. Kara bought a jar of pickled green peppers from a local farmer. We also met a really nice, cute guy who was tabling CDs from his label and selling the coolest Duct tape wallets I had ever seen. One guy came and traded zines with us. He works on a co-operative zine project where people submit art over the Internet and then can make their own renditions of each issue themselves using the publicized material on their site, SCHMUT Zine. We made a lot of sales that day and at the end of the day, several other zinesters and tablers came up to buy stuff, which was something that didn't happen the day before. I talked briefly with Kate Larson from New Paltz. She's someone I've seen around in different places due to mutual interests and have wanted to really get to know for a while now. We had a lot in common and I think she's absolutely beautiful. Talking to her made me really nervous.
A squirrel we saw on the way to The Owl House. We had to play movement tag with him to get this picture. Every time he'd pause and get ready to run, we stayed perfectly still and he'd resume eating.
After the event closed, we walked back with a significantly lighter suitcase and over $70 to a great restaurant called The Owl House. It was inside of what looked like a normal home from the outside, but had fancy tables and a bar inside. The prices were kinda steep, but the food was good enough to warrant it. They had a lot of vegan options. We were seated right across from Kate and behind a vegan woman sitting with a man who couldn't have possible made it any more obvious that he didn't care what she was saying. We ate something called a 'cigarillo', which was a fried cigar-shaped food filled with Vegenaise, seitan, Daiya, and some spices. It was one of the greatest things to have ever entered my belly. On our way out, we talked a little with the man who seated us, who let me know he was also straightedge and vegan when we first got there and he saw my hoodie. It was pretty cool. He was from Providence. We called a cab and, this time, it showed up right away. We got dropped off a couple miles away in an area called Brighton at a really cheap motel called the Tow Path Motel. A really nice Guyanese man gave us our room. We went to sleep pretty early that night, too. It felt good to be exhausted from physical exertion and so many hours wide awake, enjoying ourselves. It felt like we hadn't experienced that in such a long time, since one month in Schenectady feels like a year spent in solitary confinement, chained to a splintery cot.
The next morning, they called our room's phone to wake us up and check out, which was definitely annoying. We walked out and started going in the direction of Rochester, not really knowing where we were going until we saw a Subway and decided to get lunch there and loiter the hours we had to kill away until our train left around 3 or so. The guy who made my subs had bloodshot eyes like I'd never seen before. We took turns sitting online and reading through zines we had picked up. And then we got a cab to the train station. In the last twenty-four hours, we discovered we had done a total, complete circle around the city of Rochester.
Written on the train home on Monday, March 21st.
As I sit on the train home from Rochester and watch trains coming in the opposing direction towards my window like they'd crash into us at any minute, I can only relish in the fact that this weekend was exactly what I needed. Even as rain creates streaks across the window, as if playing a meteorological soundtrack to my return to Schenectady that is all too appropriate, I feel good knowing that this weekend's escape from both home and reality happened. It hasn't been many, but has been too many months since any kind of out-of-town trip has happened for me and Kara. I missed so much about it and, even though this was by all means a very traditional trip, being both time-constrained and expensive, involving no hitchhiking or hand-outs or risks, this tasted almost as good as the real thing, like a generic version of your favorite cookies. I got enjoy some things unadulterated, though: admiring backwoods fields and forests from the train window, in all their simplistic, natural beauty and serenity; watching, enjoying, laughing at, or cringing at the local graffiti of the towns and cities we pass through; putting invisible, untraceable, forgettable footprints on the concrete grounds of streets I have never seen or grazed before, my head literally spinning to absorb every abandoned building, every piece of litter, every passing bus and its number, every pigeon and seagull and crow, every shop or restaurant or bar with a cutesy clever name, every homeless person talking to themselves, every statue and pillar and limestone staircase to every architecturally beautiful but socially irrelevant building, every noxious sewage smell and confusing summer barbecue odor adrift in the air, every weird sentence graffitied on every lamppost and bathroom stall; talking to strangers whose names I don't remember but whose faces and friendly demeanor will eternally be sewn into my memories; being greeted by townsfolk kindness that is so foreign in my hometown; enjoying the fact that almost everywhere I go that isn't home has a handful of useful or enjoyable stops all no more than a mile and a half from each other; not sleeping outside but writhing in bliss on giant hotel beds surrounded by wallpaper designs that make you feel like you're getting away with something you shouldn't be. I will admit, though, that no matter where you go there will be people who remind you why you don't want to make any more new friends and you don't really enjoy fraternizing with people who wear tight jeans, big glasses, and self-irony. I will also admit that it was strange to go out of town and not have any mother or father to call, to check in and brag about successes to. Also, of course, various nooks still void within me were left unfilled. But that's to be expected. My heart may be filled with excitement and exasperated joy, my stomach may be filled with delicious vegan dinners, and my ears may be filled with interesting, foreign stories from strangers and momentary friends, but certain areas in my heart, soul, and mind are left begging for something vague but defined, like the dog that never becomes full.
The young guy in the seat in front of me is looking at half-naked girls on Facebook on his cellphone; I can see this in his window reflection.
Last night, I had a nightmare that was so scary it woke me up. I haven't had one of those in years. I was in my old home on Haigh Avenue, where the bulk of the scariest events in my life happened. Whenever I have dreams involving my parents, they happen there. And even though I haven't lived there since I was about fourteen, I can remember its layout perfectly, even in my dreams. The part of it I remember the most was when I was standing in our old kitchen. The door in it that lead to both the basement and a side exit made a knock sound. I don't remember there being any reason to be, but I was immediately overwhelmed with fear. I went and opened it to look, like something in a horror movie, and noticed the second door leading to outside hanging open. As if I knew what was coming next, I slammed the door shut and struggled to try and lock it. Like a monster, I heard stomping up the basement stairs and then the door knob began to wrestle with me from the other side as I tried to twist the lock. I lost and the door swung open. It was my father, big and growling like a werewolf or something. He grabbed me by my neck and lifted me with one hand, before throwing me at an impossible force into the wall on the other side of the kitchen. I jolted awake, breathing heavily. When I fell back asleep, I had another dream, very detailed and happening at the house on Haigh. This one was more complicated and confusing. There was a redneck named Ron who was invading our household and trying to take over and I was thinking about stabbing him with a screwdriver. My mother kept trying to attack me, while my father painstakingly was trying to prove that she cheated on him. I only remember tiny scenes of this dream.
Our years on Haigh were horrible. My mother, rather than taking responsibility for her and my father's actions, has always said that there was some sort of negative force in the house that caused those years to happen. They also believed it was haunted.
Beautiful Kara and her beautiful eyes and beautiful lips.
Toby, Kara's dog.
Olive, being beautiful.
Snuggles, the cat I live with. Yes, he lives up to his cheesy name.
Tia and Bianca, Tia in mid-opposition of me telling them to pose for the picture.
Late-night rain shimmering through my window.
A piece of art called "To the Patriarchy" at the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum in Buffalo where the first festival took place.
Kara, more than likely trying to not freak out as old people look at our table.
Amy's Place.<3
More graffiti in the Amy's Place men's bathroom.
A sticker outside of Amy's Place.
Eco Bella.
Across from us at the Rochester Zine Fest was a woman who headed a group called Take Back the Land, which helps negotiate for and barricade families who are being evicted from their homes. It was really cool to see someone so passionate and hard-working for a fight that is seldom fought but still so very, very important.
A cute old man statue, pondering.
NEVER GROW UP.
A pigeon! He was cooing his ass off.
EVERY DAY WE HUSTLIN', EVERYDAY WE HUSTLIN'.
Friday, March 19th: Because of the recent extra cash I came across, Kara and I were able to plan carelessly before Friday when we left on train to Buffalo. Because there was no train that left early enough to get us there by 11 on the 19th, we had to leave the day before, which wasn't a problem because it's never too soon to leave. We spent the night before watching a ton of Scrubs while cutting and folding the remainder of our around 700+ pieces of copied paper. The next day, we caught an Amtrak train to Buffalo. We waited for a half hour for a bus that never came and then paid for two tickets that were $20 more each than they were said to be online. The guy behind the window went out of his way to chuckle and say, "Weekend prices." As we waited up by the tracks, the wind was so fierce that it actually picked my hoodie up and blew my ticket up the steel. A guy around our age sat down on a bench and started drinking a tall-neck bottle of beer. He was wearing a beer brand t-shirt and had only packed beer in his pack. If he were much older than me, that would be viewed as alcoholism, but because of his youth, it's just kids being kids in America. It was only around 1. The train ride was smooth and comfortable and only a little over five hours. I mostly listened to music on my headphones and read a book, peering out the window at the fields and neighborhoods I'd never see otherwise, gone from sight in only a second or two. Our first order of business was to walk to a nearby vegan-friendly restaurant called Merge. As we started our walk, we noticed a scary amount of bro douchebags and scene girls, only to realize very quickly through a scalper that Lil' Wayne was playing an arena nearby. The walk was made pretty unbearable by how ugly that part of Buffalo was and the inconvenient weight of the turquoise suitcase we brought with us to carry our 200+ zines, Kara's two dozen cookies, and her collection of homemade bags. We got there, though, and immediately realized that it was way swankier than just about anywhere else we'd ever eaten in our entire lives. It was next door to an elite place called the Snooty Fox Lounge, where two old women in expensive coats stood and talked about whatever rich old women talk about. It was instantly uncomfortable walking into Merge. The pretty girl at the door told us there was a twenty-five minute wait for seats, but there were two bar seats open that we could take. So we did that and quickly sped through the dimly lit rows of tables packed with people whose outfits looked more expensive than our train tickets combined. We looked over the menu, which had more fancy alcoholic drinks than foods and was also designated for certain times and meals throughout the day. It was fifteen minutes or more before we figured out what we were getting.
The yuppie all-natural restaurant we ate it, Merge.
We settled for some limeade drinks, and each a small order of vegan mac and cheese and mashed potatoes. The waiter juiced the lime and made the drink himself and then poured us each a glass of water from an old wine bottle. He even placed a candle on the table and lit it. The portions we eventually got were very tiny for their price, but still really yummy. Our limeade drinks were really strong and delicious. It was some kind of mixture of real lime juice, maple syrup, soda water, and ice. It was delicious and like nothing I'd ever tasted before. A guy played acoustic music on a stage while everyone ate. No one clapped after his songs. He played a cover of that song that goes, "This magic moment... when your lips are close to mine..." that immediately reminds me of The Sandlot. Two old people dressed like the member and wife of a member of Congress sat next to us. We got out of there as quickly as we could and started walking to the bus stop. Kara stole a fancy cloth napkin, which make excellent patching fabric. Half a mile away was a bus top for the 8, which goes up some of Main Street, literally the main street, which cuts through all of Buffalo to Amherst and beyond. From a broad exploration of the local mass transit's website, I was pretty sure we'd have to take the 8 and then get on the 48 for the second half of the ride up Main Street to our hotel. But when we asked the driver, a really nice black man, he told us to get on the 41. When he dropped us off at our next bus, he got out and asked the driver, apparently his BFF of sorts, to get us to the Red Roof Inn. We had never seen such happy bus drivers before. That second driver wound up going off-route and dropping us off right in front of the hotel, too. It was awesome. We checked in and got into our room. We watched Bill Maher and started folding my first zine, which we hadn't even started yet the night before. Halfway through, we got hungry again and went to a nearby pizza pub called Santora's for some late-night snacks. We got something called Buffalo Sticks, which was a twelve-inch circle of dough glazed in Frank's buffalo sauce, and some fries. We asked if they could do the dough knots without butter and they said no. The next motel room over made a lot of noise. I peeked out through the window and saw that a pack of wild bros were moving around outside, grunting and stomping like the Neanderthals in heat. We went to sleep way later than we should have.
At 10:30, I woke up to Kara telling me to get up. Our alarm clock never went off. Instead, it just blinked a light. We rushed up and brushed our teeth, took our pills, ate a bagel each, and then called a cab, since neither buses were running regularly enough to get us to the 5th Annual Small Press Book Fair. The guy on the phone told us he'd be there in fifteen minutes. We went out and waited for five after ten more minutes of preparation in our room. A plain silver van pulled up and a cranky old man behind the wheel named Irv asked us if we were the ones who called for a ride. He told us he had been waiting and was about to leave. He sounded pissed. We told him we had been waiting right there, but he still sounded mad at us. He weaved in and out of traffic, flipped someone off, and spoke on the phone with another driver. His ringtone was the theme music to Halloween. He looked and sounded just like Ron Paul, oddly enough. He grew on us and, I think, we grew on him, too during the ride, though. He got us to the place, 453 Porter, what was once a church from the looks of it, and charged us $30. When we got inside, we checked in with the one guy who had run it the last five years. He helped us find our table, all the way in the back up a sloped wooden floor. When you first walked in, you saw a giant, ancient pipe organ towering overhead. Some of the windows were still stain-glass designs of Biblical characters and scenes. It was really cold inside, but we were luckily seated directly in front of a radiator, in between a gothy girl selling over-priced block print stamps onto stock paper and a Canadian group of over-done hipster artists representing a printing company called Wowee Zonk. At first, we just laid out our zines with a shitty handwritten sign saying mine were $1.50 each and Kara's were $1 each or $1.50 with a vegan cookie. A while later, Kara put out her bags, which ranged from $2-14. We met and talked to a lot of people. They were all really interesting and, maybe not coincidentally, Canadian. We waited a while to take turns walking around and browsing everyone else's table. It started off slow, though the place was literally packed from the moment the doors were open to the public. People of all ages were there, from the very young to the very old, and we quickly discovered that the 5th Annual Buffalo Small Press Fair wasn't exactly just DIY punk stuff like we had assumed. There were plenty of old men who ran legitimate publishing companies and printing presses. So not everyone there was exactly our target audience. Regardless, our table got a lot of attention from a little bit of everyone, including other vendors whose things we thought were way more impressive than our own.
It's an awkward thing, selling your work. And not just because we're against stuff like capitalism or marketing. Just the whole process of it is weird. Starting with the question of 'How much should we charge?' we're hurdled into uncomfortable, foreign territory. What we eventually decided was something like this: (Cost of materials) + (Amount of time invested in creation x $1) + $1. Since we get our copies for free, the first part of the equation equates to zero; the second part is usually a half hour, equating roughly to 50¢. Get it? We think that's pretty fair. So did a few other people who were surprised at how cheap our things were being sold for. Secondly, sitting there and grinning, wondering whether or not you should make eye contact with each and every person who walks by your table or glances at your stuff for even a second, is horrendously weird. Like, at what point are you trying to charm them into buying something from you or just making small talk? You feel like a dirty car salesman when describing your zine as simply and sensationalistically as possible. Thirdly, there's always the things that rush through your mind as they silently pick something of yours up and start flipping through the pages. You try not to stare, but can't help it. You try to focus on their facial expression and decipher what they could possible be thinking, what page they're stopping on, and then you start doubting your work altogether for no real logical reason. The worst part is when they put it down without saying a word, dissatisfied and disinterested. It happens a lot. But so does the opposite. In which case, if they decide to read some of it intently right in front of you after buying it, you are sent into the same confused panic and self-consciousness you are when they look at it before buying it or putting it down. By the end of the event, at 5, Kara hadn't sold any bags or change purses, but she did sell a dozen cookies and got picked up by a cute woman from Toronto who runs a DIY zine distro in Canada called TwelveOhTwo; she came up and bought ten copies of each of Kara's zines. I was really happy for Kara and she was really smiley all over about it, too. Altogether, Kara and I made over $70 that day. I bought a really beautiful piece of art by a beautiful girl tabling her crafts of a pigeon on a telephone wire with an atlas background. I got a zine called Contemporary Dude Theory, a complex, satirical social theory on Dudes that made me laugh out loud throughout the day as I read through it. I got one of Kate's zines from the TwelveOhTwo table, because Kate makes the best zines I've found so far and I have a total crush on her. And we also decided to pick up a zine about food aptly titled EAT. The cover to it was partly made of DIY 'paper' composed of garlic and onion skins.
As usual, the table next to us got a ton of attention, even though when asked what one of their screen-printed shirts 'meant' by a woman, the hipster artist replied, "I dunno." Their artwork was great, I even bought one of their books. But sitting there, I was still baffled by everyone's automatic interest in their material. And then it hit me: My generation has established a subconscious and natural aversion to words! At least, that was my theory. People would stop by our table, abundant with black and white photocopies of real stories and lots of words, and would turn away and light up at the sight of their neon-colored monsters and non-sensical, meaningless hipster art. I read in the Dude Theory zine something about 'empty novelty', and found it to be the perfect term to describe stuff like theirs and the Chelsea Dirck bullshit that reigned supreme at the other zine festival we attended. Kids now have an attraction to instant images that require no interpretation and only a second of their attention span. I wonder if books will die altogether one day.
Everyone we met was really nice and it was a great experience. After, we called Irv and got a ride to Amy's Place for a celebratory dinner. The waitress we had seemed fed up with the world, but I guess that's part of the territory when you're a waitress. I got The Biff again and Kara got some lentil thing. It was all ridiculously good and not expensive at all. We hung out there for a bit and soaked up the dirty diner atmosphere that they relish in there, counting the money we made, messily folded together mostly in ones like a stripper's night of tips. We shared a big piece of vegan carrot cake that filled us painfully and then called Irv back up for a ride to the motel. We went to sleep pretty early that night, but had to get up even earlier.
Graffiti in the men's bathroom at Amy's Place: "YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL". Great location.
Sunday, March 20th, Irv stuck to his promise and was there right at 6AM to pick us up and bring us to the train station on Dick Road. I tipped Irv and he bid us a farewell with an enthusiastic, "Thanks a million!" for a $10 tip. We had some time to kill after we got to Rochester, so our first order of business was to go get some food and coffee at an all-vegan gluten-free bakery in town called Eco Bella. It was a mile and a half walk through a really ugly looking part of town into a really cute part of town separated by an on-ramp called the South Wedge. We went in and were greeted by a really friendly, chipper woman and a large case filled with a wide and eclectic selection of baked goods. We talked to the woman briefly. She started, operates, and bakes all by herself for the place and has been doing so for over three years. She's been vegan for a while. She was so nice. We proceeded to buy several pounds of baked goods for our breakfast (a cinnamon bun, a blueberry doughnut, et cetera) and a coffee. We talked to her a lot in between trying to figure out the plans for the day. A half hour before the zine fest was supposed to start a mile and a half away, we opted to call a cab instead so we'd have enough time to make a new sign using some cardboard we had. Twenty minutes went by and no cab had shown up. So I called back and the man said, "They'll be there in one minute." Twenty minutes later, still no cab. So we ended up walking. We got a good view going over a bridge and saw a Chinese restaurant that had taken up an old KFC. We walked through a suburban neighborhood into a nice block of apartments that we later learned were subsidized housing. We found the Flying Squirrel Community Center, which was a renovated elk's lodge co-operatively run and funded by a group of activists. We were introduced to a cute woman in glasses who helped us figure out where we could table. We were placed on the first floor, right across from Kate from New Paltz, who was tabling her No Better Than Apples zines. I immediately bought two issues from her, talked a little, and then bought a zine from the man next to her about how to make chiptune music using a hacked Gameboy and LSDJ, while talking about 8-bit music at length.
I saw a familiar face from Syracuse, a guy named Chernesky, who was obviously under the influence of something or just hung over like he claimed. He sat with a friend and later harassed me with a camera, asking ridiculous and personal questions about my sex life and zines. We met a lot more interesting people at this one than the day before. This one was more centered around DIY. Everyone was really nice and had funny and interesting things to say back when I started conversations with them. Kara eventually sold out of her cookies, which had somehow garnered tons of attention. People literally had started showing up and asking about them after they were sold out. Several people did zine trades with us and Kara sold a cute change purse to a shy little girl. My third zine was a big hit and by the end of the day had almost sold out. A lot of people also bought up my Denny's issue. I kept warning everyone that my zines were really scattered and abrasive, for some reason becoming more and more self-conscious about the material in my zines as the day went on. Kara and I took turns browsing. The second floor had even more stuff tabled. A few faces from the day before were there, like the EAT people and the Dude Theory group, who were also selling crow magnets, of which I had to buy at least one. Kara bought a jar of pickled green peppers from a local farmer. We also met a really nice, cute guy who was tabling CDs from his label and selling the coolest Duct tape wallets I had ever seen. One guy came and traded zines with us. He works on a co-operative zine project where people submit art over the Internet and then can make their own renditions of each issue themselves using the publicized material on their site, SCHMUT Zine. We made a lot of sales that day and at the end of the day, several other zinesters and tablers came up to buy stuff, which was something that didn't happen the day before. I talked briefly with Kate Larson from New Paltz. She's someone I've seen around in different places due to mutual interests and have wanted to really get to know for a while now. We had a lot in common and I think she's absolutely beautiful. Talking to her made me really nervous.
A squirrel we saw on the way to The Owl House. We had to play movement tag with him to get this picture. Every time he'd pause and get ready to run, we stayed perfectly still and he'd resume eating.
After the event closed, we walked back with a significantly lighter suitcase and over $70 to a great restaurant called The Owl House. It was inside of what looked like a normal home from the outside, but had fancy tables and a bar inside. The prices were kinda steep, but the food was good enough to warrant it. They had a lot of vegan options. We were seated right across from Kate and behind a vegan woman sitting with a man who couldn't have possible made it any more obvious that he didn't care what she was saying. We ate something called a 'cigarillo', which was a fried cigar-shaped food filled with Vegenaise, seitan, Daiya, and some spices. It was one of the greatest things to have ever entered my belly. On our way out, we talked a little with the man who seated us, who let me know he was also straightedge and vegan when we first got there and he saw my hoodie. It was pretty cool. He was from Providence. We called a cab and, this time, it showed up right away. We got dropped off a couple miles away in an area called Brighton at a really cheap motel called the Tow Path Motel. A really nice Guyanese man gave us our room. We went to sleep pretty early that night, too. It felt good to be exhausted from physical exertion and so many hours wide awake, enjoying ourselves. It felt like we hadn't experienced that in such a long time, since one month in Schenectady feels like a year spent in solitary confinement, chained to a splintery cot.
The next morning, they called our room's phone to wake us up and check out, which was definitely annoying. We walked out and started going in the direction of Rochester, not really knowing where we were going until we saw a Subway and decided to get lunch there and loiter the hours we had to kill away until our train left around 3 or so. The guy who made my subs had bloodshot eyes like I'd never seen before. We took turns sitting online and reading through zines we had picked up. And then we got a cab to the train station. In the last twenty-four hours, we discovered we had done a total, complete circle around the city of Rochester.
Written on the train home on Monday, March 21st.
As I sit on the train home from Rochester and watch trains coming in the opposing direction towards my window like they'd crash into us at any minute, I can only relish in the fact that this weekend was exactly what I needed. Even as rain creates streaks across the window, as if playing a meteorological soundtrack to my return to Schenectady that is all too appropriate, I feel good knowing that this weekend's escape from both home and reality happened. It hasn't been many, but has been too many months since any kind of out-of-town trip has happened for me and Kara. I missed so much about it and, even though this was by all means a very traditional trip, being both time-constrained and expensive, involving no hitchhiking or hand-outs or risks, this tasted almost as good as the real thing, like a generic version of your favorite cookies. I got enjoy some things unadulterated, though: admiring backwoods fields and forests from the train window, in all their simplistic, natural beauty and serenity; watching, enjoying, laughing at, or cringing at the local graffiti of the towns and cities we pass through; putting invisible, untraceable, forgettable footprints on the concrete grounds of streets I have never seen or grazed before, my head literally spinning to absorb every abandoned building, every piece of litter, every passing bus and its number, every pigeon and seagull and crow, every shop or restaurant or bar with a cutesy clever name, every homeless person talking to themselves, every statue and pillar and limestone staircase to every architecturally beautiful but socially irrelevant building, every noxious sewage smell and confusing summer barbecue odor adrift in the air, every weird sentence graffitied on every lamppost and bathroom stall; talking to strangers whose names I don't remember but whose faces and friendly demeanor will eternally be sewn into my memories; being greeted by townsfolk kindness that is so foreign in my hometown; enjoying the fact that almost everywhere I go that isn't home has a handful of useful or enjoyable stops all no more than a mile and a half from each other; not sleeping outside but writhing in bliss on giant hotel beds surrounded by wallpaper designs that make you feel like you're getting away with something you shouldn't be. I will admit, though, that no matter where you go there will be people who remind you why you don't want to make any more new friends and you don't really enjoy fraternizing with people who wear tight jeans, big glasses, and self-irony. I will also admit that it was strange to go out of town and not have any mother or father to call, to check in and brag about successes to. Also, of course, various nooks still void within me were left unfilled. But that's to be expected. My heart may be filled with excitement and exasperated joy, my stomach may be filled with delicious vegan dinners, and my ears may be filled with interesting, foreign stories from strangers and momentary friends, but certain areas in my heart, soul, and mind are left begging for something vague but defined, like the dog that never becomes full.
The young guy in the seat in front of me is looking at half-naked girls on Facebook on his cellphone; I can see this in his window reflection.
Last night, I had a nightmare that was so scary it woke me up. I haven't had one of those in years. I was in my old home on Haigh Avenue, where the bulk of the scariest events in my life happened. Whenever I have dreams involving my parents, they happen there. And even though I haven't lived there since I was about fourteen, I can remember its layout perfectly, even in my dreams. The part of it I remember the most was when I was standing in our old kitchen. The door in it that lead to both the basement and a side exit made a knock sound. I don't remember there being any reason to be, but I was immediately overwhelmed with fear. I went and opened it to look, like something in a horror movie, and noticed the second door leading to outside hanging open. As if I knew what was coming next, I slammed the door shut and struggled to try and lock it. Like a monster, I heard stomping up the basement stairs and then the door knob began to wrestle with me from the other side as I tried to twist the lock. I lost and the door swung open. It was my father, big and growling like a werewolf or something. He grabbed me by my neck and lifted me with one hand, before throwing me at an impossible force into the wall on the other side of the kitchen. I jolted awake, breathing heavily. When I fell back asleep, I had another dream, very detailed and happening at the house on Haigh. This one was more complicated and confusing. There was a redneck named Ron who was invading our household and trying to take over and I was thinking about stabbing him with a screwdriver. My mother kept trying to attack me, while my father painstakingly was trying to prove that she cheated on him. I only remember tiny scenes of this dream.
Our years on Haigh were horrible. My mother, rather than taking responsibility for her and my father's actions, has always said that there was some sort of negative force in the house that caused those years to happen. They also believed it was haunted.
Beautiful Kara and her beautiful eyes and beautiful lips.
Toby, Kara's dog.
Olive, being beautiful.
Snuggles, the cat I live with. Yes, he lives up to his cheesy name.
Tia and Bianca, Tia in mid-opposition of me telling them to pose for the picture.
Late-night rain shimmering through my window.
A piece of art called "To the Patriarchy" at the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum in Buffalo where the first festival took place.
Kara, more than likely trying to not freak out as old people look at our table.
Amy's Place.<3
More graffiti in the Amy's Place men's bathroom.
A sticker outside of Amy's Place.
Eco Bella.
Across from us at the Rochester Zine Fest was a woman who headed a group called Take Back the Land, which helps negotiate for and barricade families who are being evicted from their homes. It was really cool to see someone so passionate and hard-working for a fight that is seldom fought but still so very, very important.
A cute old man statue, pondering.
NEVER GROW UP.
A pigeon! He was cooing his ass off.
EVERY DAY WE HUSTLIN', EVERYDAY WE HUSTLIN'.