High-Pressure Navel Gazing: The 24 Hour Zine Challenge

At 6pm. We look, er, ready? Maybe?

As someone who's used the written word all my life to make sense of things it seems a bit odd that the world of zines has until now been a mystery to me. Aside from attending the Auckland Zinefest on a date with someone a couple of years ago I had dismissed zines as being a bit, well, hipster. A throwback to the days before blogs and the internet that were now the bastion of people with too much time on their hands and a penchant for gingham. So when I was invited to take part in the 24 Hour Zine challenge last Friday, the lure of trying something different proved irresistible. For me, it was more the writing side that appealed. Sitting down for a night and a day in a new environment where I could just write? Sounded pretty great. The whole idea of typing, drawing, laying out and creating a 24-page booklet seemed almost an afterthought.

So myself and a friend (do check out her website- some of it very NSFW) loaded ourselves up with caffeine drinks and jellybeans and hit the town centre, really not knowing what to expect. She and I both had a rough idea of what we wanted to do. She wanted to do something queer, sexy and femme-filthy, filled with glitter and claws, and I had the idea of writing 30 letters to various people, places and things that had impacted on me in some way over the last 30 years and would be filled with anger, love, soul-baring and honesty. Basically, our ideas are this photo in zine form:

I'll leave you to work out which is which.

They said "ass"

We arrived at the Auckland Old Folks' Association (wonderfully shortened to the Auckland Old Folk's Ass on the wall outside) and were unfashionably early. In our defense we thought the place was going to be MUCH busier than it turned out to be so we wanted a table to spread out all our junk brilliant ideas on.

Ground Zero for the next 20 or so hours

I got into the writing side almost straight away, just writing out the first 30 things I could think of. They're not necessarily the most important but throwing in the first 30 seemed appropriate. Fuelled by jellybeans and V I managed to write my 30 in an impressive 4 hours, even stopping for a quick vegan pizza break. I thought I'd managed 3000 words which seemed pretty good, only to find that it clocked in at a cool 5,135. Clearly, I had no idea how zines worked. I had decided to write at least part of this opus on a typewriter because, well, they were there and it was a zine, right? I mean, that's what they're like. I think. Typewriters and whimsy.

I now hate typewriters. Hate them hate them hate them. There is a reason why my parents ditched the golfball typewriter almost as soon as they could when word processors came out. They're horrible. My romantic notions of taking an hour or so to copy stuff over turned into an EIGHT HOUR marathon as I grappled with my machine, called Enid for reason other than I needed to give my nemesis an identity beyond "you bastard". They keys were heavy. The tape for the ink needed dicking around with almost every ten minutes as my hard-earned words faded in and out like pirate radio. Apostrophes became 8s about 50% of the time. It was horrible. Unfortunately, by the time I fully realised just how monumental this ordeal would be I felt like I'd done too much to just print off the rest and be damned, and I couldn't just bin the work I had already done. the long dark Night of the Typewriter had begun.

"But how does it WORK?"

It was about this time that most of the other people in the hall left, and there was about five of us still working, not including the "security guard" who came in, found a comfy seat and promptly passed out for the next seven hours, snoring loudly enough to be incredibly irritating. There was nothing but typing now. As my friend grappled with her (much more sensible) laptop, finding photos and content, I sat and laboriously copied out my work, taking twice as long to copy what had been original content. 

While I typed, I got to thinking about that content. It was very raw. I've not had the easiest of lives (though I understand that on the global scale I've had it easy yes I know) and there's been some really nasty points. Why the hell did I want to write about them, much less write about them, type them up, photocopy them into a little booklet and distribute for free? I found myself getting annoyed with the whole idea, round about 4am, feeling like I'd reached almost Amanda Palmer levels of self-obsession. That somehow this little booklet would come back and bite me on the arse. That I should be, what, ashamed of this stuff? It was an interesting thought train. At this point I was listening to some Slayer in order to push on through to the end, which may have done little for my mood but at least it kept me awake. 

I hate you.

And then, suddenly, it was done. At around 6am I put the date on the final letter and sat looking at the pile of paper I'd created. And then, reading through what I'd written, realised I'd have to take some of it out. I'm quite protective of my work and trying not to mix personal with professional so my big piece about my career might not mix in too well with stories of abuse and violence. I took it out, looked at the typewriter in horror, wrote a short apology and drew a picture of a guinea pig in a space suit to compensate. 

By around 7am I'd been staring slack-jawed at my booklet, sticky with glue and still not looking like much in particular when we decided that breakfast and some time outside was in order. Sitting in a cafe eating food that wasn't day-glo helped a lot, as we dissected the process and questioned our sanity. Re-entering the ass was not easy, especially as the sun was up and it looked to be a hell of a good day. 

I'd had vague rules when I sat down at 6pm. No handwriting (my handwriting is comically awful). Sensible photographs from magazines, no computer printing. My art skills are almost as bad as my handwriting, so that was out too. 

Best teapot ever.

By 9am, these rules had been dropkicked out the window. Letrasets were beyond the comprehension of a brain that had been awake for 24 hours on nothing stronger than caffeine and had been staring at the same 24 pages for 15 hours. Collages were beyond my ability to  spell, let alone create. Between us we developed a siege mentality, the need to get the thing done outweighing pretty much anything else. I hand wrote. I drew pictures that a 6 year old would pat me condescendingly on the head for. After half an hour of failing to find a picture of a shark (the closest I came in my 5th edition of National Geographic had the only photo of a shark ripped out. I nearly screamed) I ended up photocopying a photo of some ground squirrels and drawing on a fin with a sharpie. At this point I detested everything I had written, not just tonight but ever, and looked with rage at the lass who'd finished hers hours ago and was now sleeping peacefully in a chair. Finally, there was just a centrefold left. All of my text was stuck in place, everything else was completed and just this centrefold remained. Two pages. With a stroke of manic genius I turned it into an interlude, the halfway point bookended by a recount of some of the hideous things an ex had said and done to me, and a short piece about abortion. I figured any poor sod reading it would need a break as much as I did. 

"You look tired"

At 11am, 17 hours after I'd sat down at a blank screen, it was done. My zine "30430" (see what I did there?) was complete. I felt a bit odd. All that effort, all that time, and for what? Did I ever want anyone to read it? Why had I written it in the first place? I photocopied it a few times and pondered what the hell to do with it. It seemed like a massive waste to just bin it, or take it home and leave it in a drawer somewhere, but did I really want people to read it? Eventually my friend persuaded me that it should be read at least by somebody, and it's now in the zine library at Alphabet City. My friend's was brilliant, a gutsy, gleefully offensive introduction to hot sex and femme fabulousness. Mine looked absolutely depressing next to it, but at least it was done. We high-fived, had our photos taken, and went to our respective beds to try not to screw up our body clocks too much. 

Finished products

 So I still have seven copies of "30430" in my bag and I'm still at a bit of a loss. Personally, it was a great exercise. I find writing incredibly cathartic and there's something quite satisfying about all of these thoughts, experiences and recollections in a physical form, like now they're out there it feels easier for me in here. I feel a little apprehensive reading this stuff, but I rationalise it by thinking that people write and act and sing and perform their experiences and real lives all the time. There's nothing in there that I'm ashamed of, after all. Some might argue the truth of it, but it's experiences as remembered by me so it's as true for me as it ever will be. Maybe someone reading it some day will take something positive from it, or maybe they'll think I'm a self-indulgent asshole. Whatever. It's done.

Will I do it again? Maybe. It was a brilliant exercise in creating something new and stretching myself, but I did make my friend promise that if I said I'd do it again she was to hit me. Though that was at about 5am and I said a lot of things around that time.

I am damned if I'm ever using a typewriter again though.

The few, the proud, the bloody exhausted

Auckland Zine fest is on at St Kevin's Arcade on the 27th July 12-5. I might be there. 

The topsy-turvy world of roller derby

In a previous life I was a skater, committee dogsbody and coach for an established roller derby league. I was privileged to be a part of an exciting, positive sport for women that seemed a world away from the perceived image of more "conventional" sport. Injury, both mine and those of others, eventually caused me to quit skating but I have stayed on the fringes, attending games and recently MCing bouts. In the last three years I've come to know and talk to a lot of players and, alarmingly, a LOT of former skaters and people who got started but quit for one reason or another. One of the most common complaints or reasons for leaving is that of time. Of not having enough to make skating attendance requirements, let alone the various off-skate meetings, fundraising events, organising and running bouts, the list goes on. Add in coaching and an experienced skater could be on skates for up to twelve hours a week, not including off-skates commitments. Even an "average" skater, skating in a home team, could be expected to skate for six hours every week.

That's a lot of your waking moments.

Then there's the bouts. Big events requiring liquor licenses, catering, organising venues with seating for a thousand (in some places in Aotearoa up to four times that many!), ticketing, flyering, afterparties (a whole other event!), half time entertainment, and all on a Saturday night when they're in competition with all the other gigs and entertainment that happen in a big city at that time. It all has to be organised while all that skating is going on. And these huge entertainment evenings are held every month, sometimes even more regularly. For a group of women and men with jobs, partners, kids and a sport to play, it's a huge commitment.

"I just couldn't commit" is one of the most common reasons why people quit. Not because they didn't like playing, not because they found the sport too hard. Because they couldn't commit.

Roller derby, to me, is being run upside down.

Who wouldn't want to play a sport where you got to wear these?

Let's compare. Take ice hockey, a skills-heavy, similarly dangerous sport so I think it's a reasonable basis for rough comparison. Ice hockey is a triangle. At the bottom, you have a huge base of casual players. The Tuesday night social leagues. The kids playing after school. the work teams. No stress, just pay your weekly subs and turn up to a rec centre to play. No glitz, no aspirations to play in the Maple Leafs (mostly). Then you have the more serious players, who'll train more regularly, hit the gym to play better, will spend time watching matches for strategy ideas, but for whom it's a serious hobby to go along with their real lives. Some big games might have a small audience. At the peak of the triangle, you have your Ice Blacks, your NFL, your Olympic hopefuls. Those at the bottom go to games to support the players at the top, they admire them and learn from them. The game is accessible to all and there is the possibility of progression up the triangle, but it's not expected. 

Roller derby? Roller derby inverts the triangle. Every aspiring skater is told from the word go that they are making a huge commitment. Every skater in a league is expected to train as hard as they can, to go further. Every bout is a big event. Every skater is told that if they try really hard they can be the next Bonnie Thunders (the LeBron James of roller derby according to ESPN), and skaters who say that they "just want to play derby" are seen as anomalies, of letting others down, of not pulling their weight.

I've done it myself. On the nights where I'd be replying to emails at 2am I'd shake a fist at the skaters who turned up, skated, packed up and just left again. I made the passive-aggressive comments about the ones who didn't make the meetings. At the time, I thought I was annoyed at their "laziness" or lack of "commitment". Now I realise I was just a bit jealous. A lot of skaters like me are unable to strike the balance between skating and life, and quit. The skaters who stay will invariably have legitimate complaints about their work rate, exhaustion, and stress. It's not a good way to be.

From experience, the main issues that cause player attrition and burnout are attendance requirements, bouts, and fundraising pressures.

Attendance: How often is the league asking skaters to attend, and how is this time justified? Let's go back to ice hockey. Mackenzie ice hockey have their player code of conduct on their website. All players are expected to "Be on time and properly equipped for all practices and games." Sound familiar? Then you see how often teams  have practice: Once a week. For an hour. I've no doubt that there will be other practices, skate sessions, and the like, but an hour a week sounds a lot more reasonable than four, or six, or ten. Doesn't it? How often is reasonable for those who really just want to skate? Which brings me on to....

Bouts: Who are they for, really? They're fun, sure. Good entertainment, usually. But surely asking thirty or so women, most of whom work full-time or in further education and have family commitments, to stage a huge Saturday-night event every month on top of their skating commitments is a bit masochistic? Roller derby has her roots in sports entertainment but if it is to be seen as a sport in 2013, why spend the hours and the tears on the entertainment as well? Here's a challenge. Imagine your league with no home fixtures for an entire year. No bout committee. Your intra-league competition is a once-a-month special scrimmage, with winners announced at the end of the year. Competitive? Sure, just like your Saturday hockey games. Nothing to stop your other half and the kids coming to cheer support, but no tickets, no flyering, no panic over where the chip fryer is for the hot food stand. Maybe you have one or two big bouts a year, an exhibition bout or the final or an inter-league. It's a big deal. It's stressful, but not rushed. Everyone's got the energy, as it's your big celebration. People will go as it's an event, not a regular fixture battling for attention on a crowded weekend. It would pay for itself, which leads me onto.....

Fundraising: So, you drop your attendance requirements. Maybe your league has one skills night a week, and one scrimmage. If you don't make skills you sit out the scrimmage. Your subs decrease as you have fewer venue fees. You host one or two big bouts a year, they're big-ticket events and a fixture on the calendar. So what is left to fundraise for? I'll answer before you do:

All-stars. 

Your best players. They represent you at WFTDA bouts, who are further up the triangle. They work hard for their jersey and let's face it, travel costs, right? Shouldn't we be fundraising for them? 

The high end- WFTDA

Let's try another way. The All-Stars run in parallel to the regular league. They pay extra for their training venues, they run their own trainings. They're higher up the triangle. Before a major away fixture, skaters on the All-Stars agree to a funding contract, to raise x amount towards the cost of travel and expenses. They can either pay it directly, or they can fundraise, find some sponsorship, or a mixture of all three. Many schools and groups run on this system for overseas trips worth thousands. It becomes the responsibility of the player to raise their funds in the best way they can. Players could work together on initiatives, other skaters could help with time or donations or whatever, but their assistance would not be mandatory. Working together to fundraise would help foster team spirit. The skaters who "just want to skate" aren't asked to commit time to raise money for others to travel the country/the world, and if your place on the squad depends on your ability to fundraise you're going to make the effort, aren't you? The first fifteen of your local high school go on week-long trips to Australia because they work hard to raise the money for themselves and their team, and you can bet your ass their training commitments are huge. 

This way, we flip the triangle. The wedge at the bottom are the twice-a-week players who rock the sports court and get a yearly shot at an audience. The better players form almost a sister league, training hard and playing harder. Progression if you want it, a fun sport to play if you don't. And hell, maybe we get our own Bonnie Thunders at the top. 

I know this doesn't address all the problems and issues around the sport, and I know that some people might be reading this and wondering how easy it'll be to cut my brake lines, but I love the sport, the women who play it and the women who want to play it and think that maybe, just maybe, there could be a place for all of us on the track. But I know there isn't space for all of us on the point of a triangle.

Faggotry and footy

Sorry for the radio silence, in the last few weeks I moved house, had a big thing on at work and was lucky enough to have my mum come for a visit from overseas so blogging took not so much a back seat as relegated to the boot with a tartan rug over the top. 

My whole family are rugby fans and one of the perks of moving to New Zealand is that I can now experience the thrill of supporting a team that wins things other than wooden spoons and certificates saying they tried hard. With this in mind what better way to spend last Saturday than at Eden Park, watching the might of the All Blacks (TM) take on Les Bleus, for the first time since that hold-your-breath-for-twenty-minutes exercise in terror that was the 2011 World Cup Final. I was looking forward to seeing the ABs on home turf for the first time (North Harbour doesn't count, sorry), and mama Glitter was keen to experience the atmosphere of a sold-out international test between two old rivals, and we chattered excitedly about how it would measure up to matches she'd been to at the Millenium Stadium and the Stade de France. She even wore her French supporters hat in the shape of a wonderfully fluffy tricolored chicken. 

photo: Paul Estcourt/The New Zealand Herald

The rugby itself had little to commend it. The French played rugby for about an hour, the All Blacks gave just enough of a performance to justify the next round of MasterCard adverts. The crowd, however, were another matter. French supporters got abused and stared down every time they opened their mouths, the AB fans around us screamed that the referee was a motherfucking cunt when a penalty went the other way, and the inebriated good old boys in front of us decided that as Scottish people we should be supporting New Zealand and had no place chanting "Allez les Bleus" (in language that was slightly less polysyllabic)  Our celebrating the French try was given short shrift indeed. 

I appreciate the strength of feeling that surrounds rugby, but to tell a complete stranger they're not allowed to support a team? To yell and scream abuse at the opposition's #10 when he's about to take a penalty? Mama Glitter and I left with a nasty taste in the mouth at the level of bitterness and aggro on display by the local supporters. We felt grateful that the worst they had on us was the wearing of a comedy hat.

So I was not in the least bit surprised when I read Hannah Spyksma's open letter to the "fans" at the same match, who, when she called them out on their repeated use of homophobic slurs, replied with "If you don't like us using the word faggot then don't come to the footy - because it's just part of the game".   The NZ Herald published the letter, and an article on the response it had received. The venerable Radio New Zealand's afternoon panel show also had a discussion about it, where Finlay Macdonald and Karl du Fresne agreed that while nasty language can get excessive, rugby fans "...shouldn't have to change their language just to mollify someone who might be offended". 

This opinion does not seem limited to middle-aged white male columnists who like to think they can be edgy whilst simultaneously appealing to the kind of rugby fan who thinks abusing a young woman in public is acceptable. A spokeswoman for Eden Park said that it's not the job of the stadium to "be the PC Police"

And here is where the wheels come off the bullshit bus. Finlay, Karl and all the small-minded bigots that night miss the point that it's not about someone being offended. It's about someone feeling unwelcome. Threatened. To sit surrounded by people using a word that describes a fundamental part of who you are as an aggressive slur doesn't make you feel a bit peeved- it makes you feel unsafe. At risk. And to have hundreds of people sit around while you are made to feel threatened and unsafe makes you feel that should that threat be realised then nobody will step in. How are you supposed to enjoy the match when you're fearing for your own safety?

Standing up to homophobia, racism or any other kind of bigotry isn't just mindless busybodying. It's saying that making people feel threatened is not acceptable. The sooner the "PC gone mad" brigade understand that the safer I and many others will feel to be who we are, wherever we are.

How to be a mate when your mate is leaving

Twenty and thirtysomethings like to emigrate. This year alone four friends of mine have upped sticks and left Aotearoa for colder if more prosperous shores. Four and a half years ago I decided the UK was a grey, grumpy, miserable little island and decided to up sticks to Auckland and never looked back. As a result I like to think I know a bit about leaving all you hold dear and reinventing yourself in pastures new, and present for your consideration some tips on how to be a good mate when your mate is abandoning you for the bright lights of the big hemisphere.

I typed "Departure" into google images. Er......

• Make time. They'll be busy. There's a million things that need sold, moved, filled out and signed in the weeks before they leave, and tensions run high. Be the one to make time. Check in with them, ask how it's going, offer to help. Meet for a quick coffee. There's something quite depressing about your closest mates treating you like you've already left when you still have to plan the leaving do. 
• Go to the leaving do, and don't be a dick. It's their leaving do. Go to it. Unless you really have something important on (or they're just not that good a mate), at least pop in for a bit. But remember that heaps of other people will be doing the same, and they'll all want to say goodbye too. Don't follow them around the whole night, and if you feel the urge to clutch them weeping about how awful it'll be without them it might be time to get a cab home
• Don't smother them. Emigrating is a full-on business. They'll be busy as hell. Your mate will be up to their eyeballs and trying to see as many of their friends and family as they can. Check in, ask when they're free, be flexible around them but don't try and do the emigrating for them. 
• Whatever they're feeling is how they should be feeling. It's a big deal, leaving. Excitement at all the awesome shopping/hiking/walrus polishing they have there, terror at leaving everything they know behind, panic at all the goddamn forms, frustration that they're not gone yet, worry that they're going too soon. Often all at once. If you manage to catch up with them for a coffee/moving the coffee table to auntie Caroline's, let them talk it out. They might be full of excitement and waxing lyrical about the hamster racing festival held in their new town, the next crying over how they'll miss kumara. Be patient with the mood swinginess.
• Try not to make them feel worse. Asking lots of questions about what they'll miss most, or if they're worried about never seeing their grandad again? Don't be that person.
• Check in when they leave. Send them the update about their local cafe getting a facelift. Ask about how it's going. Let them know they still exist in your universe! Just don't expect them to reply immediately and at length, what with all that exciting new stuff they're doing. Without you.
• Move on. I found once I left that the most random people from the motherland were getting in touch a lot and talking about our acquaintanceship like we'd been in the trenches together. They'd make constant references to visiting despite never making the effort to catch up when I lived down the road. It's nice to let your friend know they're missed but don't give the idea that you've followed them and are hiding under the house. That behaviour only works in '80s romcoms before restraining orders were a thing.