Suppressive Fire
(Sev/Scorch, E, 3.9k words)
Two bros, chillin' on a top bunk no feet apart 'cause they're vode.
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Fleet Support, Ord Mantell, barrack block 7 Alpha, six standard weeks after Geonosis
She’d be built like a tank. That was Requirement the First.
She’d be humanoid, or near enough. Her arms would number ... four. Yes, four arms, each of them doing something clever. Two to open my ass, two to pinch my nipples, her long tongue going to crazy town on my cock, burning off my pubes with her caustic breath—
Sergeant Draka. The near-human-tank was Sergeant Draka, sure as day.
Scorch grabbed this realization with one firm hand and tugged.
Her species was shab-if-I-know: some unhappy hybrid who’d washed up on the far edge of the Outer Rim and been scraped into one of those fringe clans that never removed their helmets. Her folks developed a reputation for ritualized kidnapping that didn’t sit right with Jango. He’d ripped Draka’s helmet off in a duel, apparently, and spending ten years training the spawn of her enemy was the price she’d agreed to pay to regain her honor. All those kids and nowhere to run: a bitter form of torture for both parties. Her trainees were an insular, silent bunch with a tendency to tactically acquire your shit when you weren’t looking, but they got the job done.
Scorch had first seen Draka at a parade for the prime minister when he was three. He’d never forgotten it: she had fangs and yellow eyes and ears that twitched at the tips like they were catching your current of fear. No wonder they’d encouraged her to keep a lid on.
Then Scorch was six and change and he’d stumbled upon her in a hallway. She’d had a cadet upside down, smoking him good for something. “What are you gawping at, Six-Two?” she’d snarled, her generous chest heaving, three spare arms tensing in his direction. “Shift it. Unless you want your balls torn off next.”
Scorch had been a little scared and a lot turned on.
Sergeant Vau didn’t have to use many words to put the fear of Fett under your skin. He was a conservative man. Sergeant Draka regarded a shebs-chewing as the highest form of oratory and her calling in life. Whenever Scorch stood downwind of her in the combat hall, he could feel his eyebrows being singed off a second time.
Sweating a little, Scorch’s core tensed as this fantasy tightened vividly in his holographic mind.
She puts two hands around my cock, one hand on my nipple, one hand clawing under my balls—
Scorch flipped her on her back.
She uses all four arms to spread her trunky legs, hairy as a man’s, wide in invitation—
“Knock it off,” barked Sev.
She was gone. In her place was the knowledge that his brother was clued in to what Scorch was doing on the bottom bunk and determined to make it stop.
But the pressure under Scorch’s balls held firm and his erection stood fast. Sev was an oaf with shit timing. There was a reason they gave Scorch the fiddly wires and det controls. He stretched his fingers and reset his grip. “Not happening, vod.”
“Do you have to be so loud about it?”
“Loud?” Had he said something? Lost control of his breathing?
“Yes. Loud. Like you’re slugging a hamm sandwich.”
Scorch frowned. “Have you ever had a hamm sandwich?”
“I don’t want one now.”
There was some improvement to technique needed there: Scorch was always open to feedback—to the challenge of reducing the marginal noise of a wank. “You embarrassed?” he found himself asking, strokes resuming. Less hamm-fistedly. His orgasm had slumped a little and he'd have to tenderly call it back up.
“I’m embarrassed for you,” Sev said.
Scorch closed his eyes, picturing something ...
Sergeant Draka was back, and now she was holding him and Sev upside down. The arrival of RC-1207 into the sim wasn’t throwing Scorch off. In fact, it was encouraging. Exciting. He even leaked a little at the idea. What was a commando without his squad? Chafed, apparently. He should’ve brought Sev into the game two nights ago, after they’d been rudely pulled from stasis in preparation for some op known only to Boss.
Scorch didn’t remember decant. But Sergeant Vau, who'd wasted no time rocking up to his watery exile when Jango had put out the word, said they’d been ugly, annoyed, and ornery. The nursery techs had given them mock, miniature Deeces to keep their fussy hands and mouths occupied.
Coming out of stasis had to be worse—they were issued Deeces again, but they weren’t left alone to soothe themselves to sleep with weapons. Now their waking moments belonged entirely to some Jedi named Zey. They’d been forced to run a gamut of proprioception and endurance tests, cleaned their spanking new Katarn and cleaned it once more for luck on Boss’s orders, and told to familiarize themselves with their upgraded HUD systems.
Scorch had and he'd found it wanting: no pre-loaded heavy-isotope bangers or high-definition tailhead reference holos. Did he have to do everything himself in this shabla army?
After submitting to all this with only mild complaint—Fixer had sworn in full sentences—the op order was still not forthcoming. Classic hurry up and fekkin' wait. Wait for instructions they didn’t even need. Coordinates, intel support, and a broad objective would have sufficed for a commando tasking: top brass still had a lot to learn. It had left Delta with more downtime than they liked and had left Scorch wanting nothing more than to take care of that perennial need in his groin. And each time, he had to get a little more creative.
“What’re you thinking ‘bout, Sev?” he teased, poking the boundaries of this sim. Longnecks hated that: it’s why they let the commandos have off-world field trips to forsaken places where they couldn’t peel back the corners without dying. “Something profane? Something a little non-regulation?”
“The shab is wrong with you.”
“I’ll tell you what I’m thinking ... ” The opportunity for candor—without Fixer on the opposite bunk telling him to pipe down or Boss around to make it happen—was interesting. And as far as Scorch knew, this slap-dash prefab of a support base didn’t have surveillance bugs like their dorms on Kamino. The range and assault course here weren't even specced for lasers; they had to waste live rounds on discs and be honest about getting locked onto. Not likely.
With nothing left to hide, Scorch rolled away from the wall and relaxed onto his back, his cock stiff and spry. He pulled his hood up and over his wet glans and back down again, as far as he could take it, skin smarting nicely at the stretch. He went on, “I’m thinking about Sergeant Draka.”
“Stop,” Sev said.
“Her thick thighs in my face—”
“Stop.”
Scorch spat in his hand and throttled his shaft. “Biting our balls … ” Okay, maybe that was a little weird. But if Fixer’s quick work of the base pyrowall in the anxious hours before chill-down was anything to go by, weird could be good. Better than good.
“Don’t make me come down there,” Sev growled. Not unlike Sergeant Draka, actually.
Scorch couldn’t help himself. “Oh yeah, do come down here ... ” He bucked into his fist, as if to jerk out that ball of bliss from behind his sack. The mass of him tensed rigid under one fixed goal. His fumbled around for something in the sheets with his free hand. “Come down her thick legs ... ”
If anything could singe Draka’s hairs, it’d be Sev’s spunk. Scorch loved a blast, but Sev would sprinkle baradium on his Oaties every morning if he could. Sev would spill like a gutted aiwha, animalistic and uncontrolled, and Draka would hiss and gnash her teeth and—
And suddenly, Scorch was over the line. His base clenched hard, choking his groan of release. He convulsed and came thickly into one of yesterday’s socks.
“Shab,” he croaked, his vision returning, his limbs pooling with pituitary pleasure. “Blew up real good.”
Somewhere above him, Sev huffed. “Three nights in a row. You’re disgusting—you know that, right?”
“Stasis, my shebs. I’ve never had such busy balls in my short life.” Scorch twisted languidly to the edge of the mattress and sat up, squeezing his cock clean. “Cooking blanks like they might get lucky.” The knotted sock got buried in tomorrow’s laundry and Scorch borrowed some of Boss’s wet wipes for the cleanup. Sarge wouldn’t miss them.
“The rest of us are fine,” Sev countered.
Scorch glanced at Sev over his shoulder. His brother looked like a corpse who’d taken up reading in the afterlife. Base bunks weren’t much cosier than a stasis pod, but something else was keeping Sev’s spine stiff. Something that might affect squad performance if it wasn’t addressed: a bad case of self-inflicted blue balls.
Scorch pulled up his pants and ambled over. “You know ... you say that. But this says something else.” He grabbed Sev’s perky junk.
Happily for his brother, Scorch’s grip was light. So when Sev knocked Scorch backwards at the throat, he didn’t take Sev’s sack with him. A scuffle ensued, half-hearted on Scorch’s side, though Sev was obviously in one of his fuck-off moods. He always was crankiest after a nap; it’d take him days to shake off stasis. And he was still pissed about Procurement’s theft of his helmet, with its authentic Gamma blood enshrined in red paint. That di’kutla squad had been shipped to Triple Zero, and until Sev butted heads with them again, he’d be as scratchy as a flea-bitten akk.
Using the shallow bunkrail, Scorch flung himself up and collapsed onto his brother, asking the cantilevered cot to bear the weight of two commandos. He was a trusting soul. The tussle continued until Scorch allowed Sev to secure a headlock, rather than drag them both onto the floor. They’d just gotten out of one unnatural bath and he didn’t fancy a dunk in bacta.
Scorch tapped Sev’s thigh. “Alright, alright,” he said hoarsely. Sev’s hold loosened a fraction and Scorch scooted out from it. Sitting up, he grabbed the holozine that had gotten pinned against the wall: some monthly edition of erudition that called itself Lasers & Blasters. “Didn’t know you could, Oh-Seven.”
Sev snatched the ‘zine to stuff it under his pillow. “It’s above your cadet-grade.”
“I think everyone knows you’re the knuckle-dragger around here, not me.”
“I think everyone knows I’m the hero of Geonosis, Killer of Sun Fac.”
Scorch made a theatrical noise that sounded like a broken, wet bes’bev. “Woo-hoo! You hit the broad side of a bantha!”
Now Sev really tried to catapult him onto the floor. But Scorch’s close-combat situational awareness noticed that his brother’s cockstand was holding strong.
“Sev,” he said, panting a little when they’d reached another stalemate, “the only people who know Sun Fac’s name are us, some spooks, and that random forward air controller.”
“Shove off.” Sev kicked him with his boot. He wore them to bed like an animal.
Scorch shook his head. “Not until you take care of yourself.”
“You have some shabla nerve, vod.”
“Rule 45: there should be no happier union than that between a commando and his weapon. But you’ve neglected yours.” He cast a judgemental eye at Sev’s tented pants. They’d been sleeping, shooting, and shitting cheek-by-jowl for their entire lives: Scorch didn’t know why one more bodily function would be that much worse. In that moment, he had more sympathy for his brother’s dick than his brother’s karked-up dignity. Or his own.
He glanced at the chrono. Boss and Fixer still had half an hour at the range and they’d probably hit the mess on the way back. Time enough for a little more equipment maintenance; Scorch believed he was being supremely generous offering what remained of his. He flopped over into a plank above his brother, who was still lying deathly prone. “If you’re not gonna help yourself ...”
“What?” Sev sneered. “You’ll do the honors?”
“Maybe I will. I am better than you, after all,” Scorch grinned. Suddenly, he sensed a game that he wanted to win. They were all like that. Competitive. Not so much against each other, but with each other. Getting screwy Sev off would be the ultimate victory: no one would lose and everyone would leave happy.
“You can’t.” Sev’s disinterest was as threadbare as his pillowcase.
“Alright, vod. I’ll take that bet.” Scorch dug the heel of his hand into his brother’s persistent erection. Sev’s eyelids fluttered. No greater tell in the book. “I bet I can get you off before Boss and Fixer get back. Just this once.”
Sev circled his hands around Scorch’s throat, hissing through perfect teeth bared tight, “You—can’t—Sergeant—Vau—would—”
Scorch scoffed. “You see Sarge here? He’s fucked off to his castle with his kaminii retirement fund.”
Vau had never promised he’d be there on the other side, but ... did he know they’d done a good job? That they’d been singled out for the assassination of the bugs’ chief lieutenant? That they’d survived—no, that they'd excelled, when hundreds of other squads hadn’t? Did he even care? Scorch had to wonder.
He shoved those thoughts aside with conscious effort; they wouldn’t do him any good. Better that Vau wasn't here anyway: he would sniff mightily at this interpretation of no brother left behind. “Hells, he’s probably rubbing one out to a portrait of the dead missus right now,” Scorch continued.
Sev’s grip tightened for their sergeant’s honor. “He wouldn’t—”
“He would. Stars love the old chakaar, Sev, but he’s only flesh and blood.” Actually, that’s all Vau was: cragged skin and blue blood twisted ‘round a frame that seemed to boast a few more bones than average. There must have been a heart in there, too—see: Mird—but Delta had spent their entire cadethood seeking it out to little good. Especially Sev, though he’d slot you for saying so.
Oh, Sev’ika: flesh and blood, plus a lot of bile and bad humor. He stank out the backend when he’d scarfed down too many ration packs, but what would splatter out the front? Scorch was beyond curious now, as he palmed his brother’s package through his clothes.
Sev’s hands held firm, but it was half-hearted, his thumbs only tickling his brother’s trachea. His nostrils flared. He was afraid. No, even better—he was desperate.
It was all the vindication Scorch needed. “That’s right—breathe. Relax. Six-Two’s got you.” He tugged Sev’s fatigues down, hitching the elasticene band behind his balls. Sev grimaced. Yeah, it might not be comfortable yet, but just wait; a little pressure there goes a long way.
“That hurts,” growled Sev.
“Gonna hand me the game?” If Sev had lost sight of his mission objective, he really was gummed up. “Jerking off through a fly feels like doing it in formation,” Scorch said.
Sev turned his head to the wall. If he’d done it at all, that was clearly how.
Scorch took his theoretically-identical brother in hand and felt the heft and heat of a dick that was still an inch left of familiar, however many times he'd seen it. Sev was throbbing. His hands fell away, as deliberately limp as the rest of him, like he was trying to absent himself from his body.
“So ... Sergeant Draka—” Scorch began, realizing he’d just been staring at his brother’s kad for longer than was right. He mentally constructed the fantasy again, deliberately this time, while he warmed up to the idea of working someone else’s shaft. Sev’s shaft. He imagined what Sev might like to hear, because Scorch sure as shab wasn’t keen on hardening up between his brother’s legs himself. That would just be strange. “She’s got you under two hands and a squawking bug under the other, honkin' great tits ready to smother the both of you ...”
Up until he’d found his brother’s cock in his hand, Scorch had fancied himself an honest commando. He really did. Then he had to close the dissonance between his not-insignificant-interest in Sev’s pink tip and, well, Sev: that awkward grump-a-lump who couldn’t look at a sapient or sentient, droid or organic, without scaring them away.
Scorch did it by telling himself this was just his own his cock in a mirror. A learning experience, if nothing else. And his tongue loosened to remember the bet. He began rubbing with intent. “She snaps its neck. Crunch. And isn’t that just your favoritest sound, Sev, ol’ boy?”
“Not her,” Sev said hoarsely.
Manda, he really was giving this to Scorch in the bag. “Who?”
“—don’t know—I don’t shabla know.”
“Easy, vod. You got a lifetime to find out. Well, half of one.”
“Shut. Up.”
Scorch changed the program and flicked a thumbnail right under Sev’s hood. Scratched out whatever dream Sev had building behind his scrunched eyes. It was irrelevant, whatever cleaned the pipes. If his brother didn’t want to say, who was Scorch to ask? The silky give of his hard-on and his nasally gasps vouched that Sev was having an a-okay time. Scorch wouldn’t have a hand, otherwise.
Sev bubbled from his tip. Scorch felt himself flush, but he was more intrigued than anything. It really was like watching a holo of himself. Obviously, Scorch was more handsome, mostly because he wasn’t a fucking psycho ... but a cock was a cock. He lengthened his movement with the slick aid of precome, fisting all the way down to Sev’s slightly lighter curls.
Suddenly, Sev’s fingers wrapped around his. For an alarming half-second, Scorch feared his wrist was about to be snapped. Goodbye dominant hand and superhuman reaction times.
But Sev just held on, eyes pinched shut, arm as unyielding as a barrel.
The situation became more straightforward. Emboldened by the team effort, Scorch stroked faster. Harder. He read the lines in Sev’s fierce face like a manual for a weapon he’d been handed five years ago. A clone lifetime. A batcher’s intuition. He shucked Sev’s sheath down as hard as he could. Twisted his wrist at the top further than Sev’s delicate skin wanted to go. Scorch figured his brother liked the bite of pain. “You feelin’ the heat? You gonna spill all over my fingers, Sev’ika?” he teased.
Sev heaved like he might throw up, and he coughed out only two words. “Do. Not.”
Yeah, he hates that kind of chummy osik and yakking. It was almost sad how much Sev knew what he didn’t want, but couldn’t voice what he did. Even Fixer grunted in approval when something wriggled across the ‘pad’s screen; at least he had some idea what kind of parts he fancied. It was a very broad pool.
Sev just looked embarrassed to be asked.
“Someone’s gonna love your shit, Sev,” Scorch encouraged, coming at it again from a different vector. If he didn’t show his wacky brother some love, who would?
Vau hadn’t been there to bestow that curt nod. They didn’t want to be spoiled. Scorch and his brothers weren’t Skirata’s pups: they’d survived Geonosis because they weren’t. But ... Delta was here and Theta wasn’t and Vau had no karkin’ clue what a close-run thing it’d been. Didn’t know how the knife-edge of his training had probably made all the difference and how chuffed they all were about it.
Or how Sev had made that one-in-a-million shot to Sun Fac’s fighter with half his visor splattered in bug spray. Scorch would remember that for the rest of his short life: angry tendrils of smoke rising behind Sev as he turned contemptuously away from his kill, his helmet gooey with Geonosian.
There were brothers, and there were your brothers: the ones who’d made you better just by being there beside you. Sev was one of those.
Scorch didn’t have to improv osik, now. The words came as easy as his muscle memory as he pistoned his palm along Sev’s angry cock. “Fuckin’ proud of you, Sev: bane of bugs and sniper extraordinaire. Wish Vau could’ve seen it, I really do. I’ll have CLONINT’s guts for rappelling lines for wiping Boss’s cache.”
Sev’s free hand had bunched into the sheet, his knuckles whitening. He stilled suddenly, tense as the second before the opening salvo. Here it comes.
“Ooh, so that’s how Sev breaks. Result!” Scorch had imagined Sev’s orgasm would be like squeezing blood from a stone. Not at all: it came as surely and naturally as his own. Scorch watched intently. Who knew their balls became one in the moment of triumph like that? As Sev’s practically disappeared into his taut body, Scorch had to think on his feet to save his brother’s freshly-laundered fatigues—or, on his knees and elbows, as the case was.
Thunking his other arm across his face, Sev lost the bet with a violent shudder—and without a sound, probably so he couldn’t say he’d enjoyed it. He squirted fully but cleanly onto the open spread of the ‘zine, thanks to Scorch’s management and direction. A long, messy line of cloudy white right across the cross-sectioned barrel of a Magna-Caster-100. Thank fuck for flimsi.
Shaking off Sev's hand, Scorch dropped the wilting cock. It was not attractive, and he prayed the ladies wouldn't think the same, warring with himself about whether he could succumb to the mortification of going limp in someone’s mouth. Maybe it was better to pull out and stripe them? It merited further research on Fixer’s ‘pad, just in case.
“Target softened. Should make things easier for you. Hope you took notes,” Scorch said, oddly transfixed by the description of the ‘Caster’s invisible quarrels he’d spotted on the page. He was growing itchy for a time-sensitive rummage—Scorch would wager his lower left nut that Delta could now go toe-to-toe with any of Draka’s squads for acquisition. With any luck, this mysterious upcoming op would net them some exotic toys.
He shifted his weight, feeling the need to move before that idea made him stiff again and everyone got the wrong impression.
“‘m not soft, di’kut,” Sev mumbled from underneath his arm.
Scorch patted his thigh. “Sure you’re not.”
“Getting soft will get us popped.”
Scorch was halfway off the bunk, but he stopped to squeeze Sev’s fucked-up head. “Hey, ner vod. Look at me—look at me,” he demanded. Sev let his arm fall behind his curls but he kept his gaze elsewhere. “No need to quote Sarge to me. Or go grey over stupid stuff like him.”
Stuff like distraction—a dirty word in Vau’s lexicon. What did they have to get distracted by, anyhow? Grainy holovids? They had enough room in their over-engineered skulls for a few of those, and if they ever got to touch the real thing, Scorch figured they wouldn’t lose their heads. Right? Civvies were so unexceptional, after all. Probably couldn’t tell a maranium blast from a benign xenon light sculpture. Brothers, especially your fellow commandos, were the only company worth keeping—even Vau said so, and Skirata had said Vau had wined and dined New Mando aristos and had bedded a fekkin’ princess in a past life.
Eventually, Sev’s sour mug puckered in something like thought. “If you fucked up my range scores, I’m going to piss in your pack.”
Scorch laughed, dumping his feet onto the floor and wandering in the direction of Boss’s ration bars. Mess was a whole two hours away and Scorch had a month’s eating to make up for. “Sev’ika, no one could fuck up your range scores. You just pregamed with Lasers & Blasters.”
The ‘zine smacked the back of Scorch’s head, wet side flat.
Yeah, we're still good, Scorch thought, as he finally manhandled his stroppy brother onto the floor. And we always will be.
(also on Ao3)
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Episode 3: Ali Giordani
00:13
Maira: Maybe this has something to do with
[Alg laughs]
Maira: Tight, the recording volume was all the way down! And now it's just off the charts.
Alg: Now it's just off the charts.
Maira: I'm probably going to cut all of this out.
Alg: Oh, no.
Maira: Maybe I'll keep it. Okay, who know? Hello, and welcome to the third annual episode of Long Arm Stapler, a podcast about zines. I'm Maira.
Alg: I'm Ali, or Alg.
Maira: Today, I have Alg with me.
[both laugh]
Maira: Okay, I just worked an 8 hour shift and I'm very delirious, but this should be fun. Um, so we are two thirds of Queer Anxiety Babiez Distro. But Ali also does their own stuff, which we are going to talk about. Um, yeah. So, tell us a little about your experience with zines. And yourself I guess? Whatever you want to talk about.
Alg: Yeah! Um, my name is Ali, or Algae, or Alg, I have a lot of nicknames. I guess I first got into zines, like I remember I went to Portland to visit my cousin, and she took me to a zine library and I was like, "Whoa."
Maira: Was it at the IPRC?
Alg: Yeah it was at the IPRC.
Maira: Oh! I love the IPRC.
Alg: So it was so good and so exciting, because I was like, "Wait, you can publish things? And you don't have to go through publishing houses?" Because I find that to be very intimidating for no reason.
Maira: Oh no, it's intimidating.
Alg: Yeah, so, I- but I didn't really, I've actually found the first thing I ever got published in a zine, it was in Oatmeal Magazine, which I might read.
Maira: How long- so, you worked on Oatmeal for how long?
Alg: Um.
Maira: Was it you and Claire from the beginning?
Alg: No, Oatmeal was started by Claire Stringer and Trisha, I'm forgetting her last name right now. I think they started it in like 2011 or something. And then Trisha moved to North Carolina to start grad school, and I like timidly asked Claire if I could help edit it in 2015? And then we did it together for two years and it was such a good experience, and I found such a good artistic community through it, and I think during that time, you all had asked me to help run Queer Anxiety Babiez, and it was so kismet and great.
Maira: I really enjoyed your Twitter presence. Because we hadn't met-
Alg: We hadn't met, no.
Maira: You submitted to one of my zines and I think I followed you on the Queer Anxiety Babiez Twitter. and I thought, "They're funny, they should join us."
[Alg laughs]
Alg: I have a good Twitter presence.
Maira: Yeah, for sure. Kristen, the other member of Queer Anxiety Babiez, we were like, going through a mental list of people, because you know, we're so elite.
[both laugh]
Maira: And you know, people are just flocking to join our Distro.
[Alg laughing]: As they should, though.
Maira: And so it was like, it was a pretty short list, we just said, "Yo, let's get Ali in on this."
Alg: Yeah I remember I got that text that said, "Can we talk to you about something?" And I was like, "Oh my god, what did I do wrong?"
[Maira laughs]
Alg: Did I somehow just offend these two people, yeah, we didn't, I would say we met a couple of times and then we became friends when we went to Portland together for Portland Zine Fest-
Maira: Yeah, yeah!
Alg: That was like, a very sweaty zine fest.
Maira: God, it was so hot in there.
Alg: It was so hot, but I still had a good time.
Maira: Yeah, I got my Hunting for Weed hat, that I actually talked about at work today. And showed my coworker a picture from your Instagram.
Alg: Wow.
Maira: But yeah, we drove up to Portland Zine Fest last year?
Alg: Yeah, this past summer.
Maira: And it was a long drive."
[Alg laughs]
Maira: I'm a professional. As we sit on my living room floor, Ali walked into my apartment and I was listening to the Space Jam soundtrack because it was released on VHS on this day-
Alg: Oh.
Maira: In whatever year.
Alg: So you're celebrating.
Maira: Three eleven. Three eleven was an inside job.
Alg: Oh, three eleven.
Maira: Shout out to Poliana because I totally jacked that.
[Alg laughs]
Maira: Zines!
Alg: Zines, yeah. I guess I could talk more about that, my love of zines. I just did, I guess I can talk about "Advice to Our Younger Selves"-
Maira: Yeah!
Alg: That was a project I started, and I really want to make a second issue of it, so look out for submissions, but uh, I got sort of obsessed with the idea of taking myself out for a pancake breakfast. Like taking all my younger selves out for a pancake breakfast. Because I actually wrote about that in one of my pieces that I submitted to Oatmeal for the first time. And I was like, "That would be so cool, I would love to do that." And then I just created a zine about it. And everyone, like I got so many good submissions. [clears throat] The release night was really special to me, because it was a couple people's first time reading, which I love to facilitate, because everyone- it's really nerve-wracking to read in front of people.
Maira: Yes.
Alg: I remember the first time I did it my voice was just shaking the whole time, and my voice is always shaking, but it was-
Maira: Especially shaking.
Alg: Especially shaking, because it's like I write really personal things on my phone, and then to see them in print and read them out loud to people? It's such a different experience, but it's always very validating to me. My least favorite thing is when I read something about like, suicide or body image, and people come up to me and say, "That was so brave."
Maira: I, okay-
Alg: That's such a pet peeve of mine. I don't know.
Maira: I- like, it is but it shouldn't be brave. Like, it's like when if I wore a swimsuit people would be like, "Oh my god you're so brave"-
Alg: So body positive.
Maira: And it's like, no I'm just fat and wearing a swimsuit.
Alg: Exactly! No-
Maira: Leave me alone!
Alg: Yeah I mean, I know- now I usually preface things by saying like, "Please don't tell me I'm brave after reading this," because all of my piece are very personal but, I remember that happened a lot the night I read this really personal piece about sexual abuse. And I was like, "I can't handle this anymore. Please stop saying I'm brave." I don't want to be brave.
Maira: Put it on a t-shirt, like "Don't tell me I'm brave." Maybe I'll make buttons! We can sell them at the next zine fest.
Alg: Yes. Oh, I would actually, that's a good idea.
Maira: Yeah, dude, we can make one tonight. I've got my button maker. Let's fucking do it.
Alg: Let's just do it.
Maira: Not right now, because we might get distracted.
[Alg laughs]
Maira: And the button maker is a little noisy.
Alg: Oh my god.
Maira: Yeah, let's do it.
Alg: Zines. I love them. I wish I had something more profound to say about them.
Maira: What's your favorite zine? Or like how did you get into zines? Wait, you already told me.
Alg: Yeah, through Oatmeal but I think before that, I was just really into the idea of doing self-published work. And I was very intimidated, I would say, by the zine community, at first. Because I feel like it can be very intimidating when you go to a zine fest, and now that I'm on the other side of it - yeah, sometimes I'll talk to people, I like really try to be outgoing, but you've sort of been sitting there for 4 hours and it's just like, I hope I don't come off as short to people. Because that can be scary.
Maira: It's draining.
Alg: It's scary. It's draining.
Maira: Sitting on the other side of a table?
Alg: Yeah, it's surprisingly draining. So-
Maira: And then when old men just read your-
Alg: Oh my god.
Maira: Really personal work, and then look you in the eye afterward, and then expect you to talk to them about it. And I'm like, "This isn't written for you."
[Alg laughs]
Alg: Shout out to Kristen for doing the bike bros, "No Bike Bros" stuff, because they ahd to deal with all these bike bros coming up to them being like, "What is this about? Is this about me?" And it was like, yeah, it's about you. If you have to ask, it's about you.
[Maira laughs]
Alg: But yeah, I think I really, really got into zines after I went to- the first zine I was in was "Totemeal," which was an issue of Oatmeal, they're really big on the puns. We got big on the-
Maira: Was there a tote bag involved?
Alg: No, there wasn't, but it was like, "Totemeal: The Baggage Issue."
Maira: Oh, I get it.
Alg: Which I loved, yeah and then I went to that zine release and was like, "Wow there's a whole bunch of people who love writing and sharing," and Oatmeal really became a beautiful experience for me. To get real cornball, but, I think we might try to do another issue, but Claire is very busy with grad school. It's awesome, but I also really miss Oatmeal.
Maira: Yeah, Oatmeal was one of those things that I had always heard of it, and I always thought it was really cool, and then I like, was intimidated by Oatmeal? I'm pretty much intimidated by anyone whose zines are not like-
[Alg laughs]
Maira: I stole printer paper from work and I don't know, zines that look nice.
Alg: Yeah-
Maira: And Oatmeal looks really nice.
Alg: Yeah because Claire does an awesome... shout out to Claire Stringer.
Maira: Shout out to Claire.
Alg: Because she does the most beautiful illustrations for it, and yeah, it always looks very professional.
Maira: I've just got all this fucking handwriting all over mine, "Wah, I'm sad," but in cursive.
[Alg laughs]
Alg: I know, now that I have the Kinko's code, I'll never be printing at home ever.
Maira: Oh my god, shout out to the Kinko's code. Maybe not a shout out? I don't know.
Alg: Yeah, if anyone from Kinko's is listening-
[both]: Don't!
Maira: Don't listen to my podcast.
Alg: All the Kinko's people who subscribe to zine podcasts. Folks really have to deal with so many zine people.
Maira: Oh my god, yeah.
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: They're always like, I don't know, I went to a, I think it was twenty four hour FedEx when I was in LA when I was down there for some zine fest, with my friends Alan and Ari, and the people who worked there were just glaring at us the entire time. Because I feel like when you go for zine stuff, and I got glared at with um, Niko and Mando when we were prepping for Dear Diary. Um, because when you go for zine shit, you spread out-
Alg: Yeah!
Maira: All over, you take over every single self-service copier, and you put your shit everywhere, and you've probably got snacks.
[Alg laughs]
Maira: And you're trying not to make a mess but you might be. And you're stealing their staples-
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: To put in your own stapler. Again, if you work at FedEx, don't @ me.
Alg: Yeah, my thing is I always have to ask them to refill the paper, like-
Maira: Oh.
Alg: Also, zinesters, don't go to the Fedex in downtown Berkeley.
Maira: Oh no, that's the one we went to-
Alg: They're so rude. They're so rude there.
Maira: Yeah! They were- It closes at 8 o clock.
Alg: It closes at 8 o clock now?
Maira: Yeah, because they kicked us out at 7:59. And my friend, Niko, was very like, "No, I'm printing these copies, I paid for them, we're staying til they're done." And they were like, [high voice] "It's 7:59, you need to go."
Alg: Damn.
Maira: "You damn punks, get out of my store!"
[Alg laughs]
Maira: That's what it felt like.
Alg: No, totally.
Maira: So we went to the twenty four hour one in San Francisco, and we were there for fucking hours, and they were rude to us there, too. I think just hate zine people.
[Alg laughs]
Maira: It's always old people who just maybe you're just angry?
Alg: I mean, yeah if I had to work at a twenty four Kinko's, I think I'd be a little angry, too.
Maira: Yeah-
Alg: But also-
Maira: We're just trying to get by.
Alg: You're at work right now.
Maira: Yeah, you're at work, just be nice. I work customer service too, damn.
Alg: I know, I know.
Maira: I feel like I'm very polite when I go in, and I'm not like, [monster noise].
[Alg laughs]
Maira: That's actually the noise I make when I leave my house any time I interact with a human. But yeah like, I don't know, I feel like I'm pretty understanding of like, customer service shit because I've been in it for years. And it's just like, be nice.
Alg: Just be nice.
Maira: I'm sorry that people are mean to you all day.
Alg: At least be passive aggressive.
Maira: Yeah, oh my god, I would so much prefer passive aggressive.
Alg: Right? Like I was such a passive aggressive asshole when I worked service jobs.And then there's the occasion that I have no one to be passive aggressive to.
Maira: Yeah, you need that outlet.
[Alg laughs]
Maira: Maybe- are there passive aggressive zines?
Alg: Oh my god, there should be.
Maira: Just a zine full of passive aggressive notes.
Alg: Oh my god.
Maira: Like a collection.
Alg: There should be.
Maira: Oh my god, if you have received a passive aggressive note, email it to us.
Alg: Please scan it or take a pic.
Maira: Scan it, and email it to us and we'll make a fucking zine of passive aggressive notes.
Alg: I think that's actually-
Maira: The light bulb just went off.
Alg: I think that's what I actually really love about zines is you can just think of any random collection of stuff you want to do and be like, "Wait, I'm just going to make a zine of it."
Maira: Yup.
Alg: That's what I really love about it, because I mean some of them are obviously very nicely printed and very glossy and it'll look like perfectly composed photographs which, mad respect to those people because I am not like that at all. But I also love the ones that are like scribbly and just like, made in a hurry.
Maira: Yeah.
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: Um, are you working on anything right now?
Alg: Yeah! Um, I am doing a sort of complicated project with my older sister Sonia, it's going to be a "found objects" zine, so essentially what you do- we were originally going to have people mail all the objects to Sonia, but now it's just going to be like, "Give them to me or Sonia." It's like if you have a found object that you love, um, just give it to one of us and then you'll- we're going to do a huge exchange and you'll get a new found object from like an anonymous person, and then you write about it.
Maira: That's so tight. I feel like that's a lot of orchestration-
Alg: Yeah. It is.
Maira: So kudos to you for putting that on.
Alg: Yeah, we have a spreadsheet going, or we need to make a spreadsheet.
Maira: Oh cool, okay.
Alg: Yeah, because it's going to be complicated. Obviously, everyone is going to want their found objects back. But-
Maira: Yeah.
Alg: I really want to do that so look out for more Facebook posts about it because like I actually need to get on that.
Maira: Yeah, it will be on the Queer Anxiety Babiez Facebook page.
Alg: Mhm.
Maira: And I’ll post about it on Long Arm Stapler, too.
Alg: It’s like it, it’s hard to describe but it’s going to be a really fun project. I think I’m actually going to, because I want to do it in color, because I want to like scan the objects and have them next to other… Like take pictures of them if they’re like larger objects-
Maira: Ooh, yeah.
Alg: Yeah I just need to save up a little money to like, do the mailing costs. But, and then I’m working on another one with Mollie Underwood who um-
Maira: Irrelevant?
Alg: Yeah does Irrelevant Press, yeah and they’re awesome. But yeah we’re doing one that’s… we gave each other ten words slash concepts to write about and we’re just going to write about them and put them in a zine without saying whose is whose. But that means I can’t write anything that like really gives me away-
Maira: Yeah.
Alg: Which is hard because [laughs] all my shit is so personal, but-
Maira: Yeah.
Alg: Yeah! That’s what I’m working on right now and I’m really excited about both of those things because shit has been hard lately, and creativity can be difficult when you’re depressed. But it’s also-
Maira: Preaching to the fucking choir.
[Alg laughs]
Alg: But it’s also so important too, I don’t know, like I like zines that I’ve made because then I can look at them and be like, “Oh I made something and I did something,” and it’s very comforting.
Maira: It’s kind of like that scene in Parks and Rec where-
[Alg laughs]
Alg: Where Ben-
[Alg laughs]
Maira: Adam… Ben is like, “Could a depressed person make this?” and there’s this perfect little doll that looks like him, and it’s like, yeah that’s basically depression in a nutshell.
Alg: Yeah his requiem for a Tuesday. I actually made a meme about that once and it didn’t get as much attention as I wanted.
Maira: Your memes are good.
Alg: Yeah, it’s like me when I submit my writing [laughs] “Could a depressed person make this?”
Maira: That’s how I-
Alg: That’s what I do all the time.
Maira: I like that zines are tangible, because I can be like, “Damn, I was really depressed but I got twenty-four pages.” Like-
Alg: Mhm.
Maira: And I mean, they’re quarter sized, I’m not prolific…
[Alg laughs]
Alg: You’re pretty prolific.
Maira: Um, [exhales sharply] I just like holding them up and being like, “Yo, I was really depressed, but like, something I guess good came out of it?” You know?
Alg: Yeah! Yeah I really like, is it Manic Summer?
Maira: Manic Spring.
Alg: Manic Spring, I really like that one.
Maira: And then it was Manic Spring 2: This Time It’s Summer.
Alg: Yeah, yeah. [laughs] That was good.
Maira: I need to write more.
Alg: Always. I feel like I can only write when I’m distracted and like, trying to procrastinate on other projects.
Maira: Yeah!
Alg: Or on my smoke breaks. I’m going to try to quit smoking this year, so it will be very interesting.
[both laugh]
Maira: So… writing is… you’ll just have to take writing breaks instead of smoke breaks.
Alg: Yeah, maybe I’ll do… yeah. So that’s how I feel about zines!
Maira: Tight.
Alg: I love them, everyone should make them, and you should reach out to us.
Maira: Queer Anxiety Babiez with a “z!” I don’t know why I said it like that.
Alg: With a “z.”
Maira: With a “z”!
Alg: No, I mean, yeah I really like that when people like, give us their zines or talk about ideas they want to do and… or even just ask for help because it’s like, if you have the knowledge, you should just share it.
Maira: Yeah, we love sharing knowledge. Um, and I feel like we’re… so technically in October of 2017 we said we were going on hiatus, and like-
[Alg laughs]
Maira: I’ll say it, none of us have gotten our shit together-
Alg: No.
Maira: All of us are just dealing with shit so we’re still on hiatus? But, I don’t know. I want to like… I really miss working with y’all and making zines and like-
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: Crafting.
Alg: I want to have like-
Maira: This is the sappy gay portion of-
Alg: Oh my god yeah, thank you everyone who stuck around for it. The sappy gay-
Maira: The sappy gay portion.
Alg: My corny Italian ass is going to get real right now. No, I mean, yeah I think it’s really easy to self-isolate when you’re depressed and I’ve definitely been doing that because I’ve been massively grieving some losses and I just really want to honor myself and my art and make new things and my birthday is coming up so I really want to have like a Queer Anxiety Babiez reading night, where we just get a ton of people together in my backyard and just read in the afternoon.
Maira: That would be so cool!
Alg: And freak out all my neighbors in Temescal. That’s not until May, so I have a couple of months to figure it out and plan it out.
Maira: Yeah.
Alg: Yeah, because I love readings.
Maira: Yeah, readings are fun. They’re scary but they’re fun.
Alg: Yeah, I-
Maira: Most of the time when I read I like, cry-
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: Because it’s so… weird, hearing my own voice is weird.
Alg: Speaking into microphones is really fucking weird.
Maira: This is weird right now.
Alg: Yeah. Yeah I’m just looking at all your tattoos.
Maira: Oh!
Alg: I’m just never going to get bored of them.
Maira: Thank you! I got some new ones. I got the stapler.
Alg: I know, I really want a long arm stapler tattoo now.
Maira: I think everyone should get long arm stapler tattoos.
Alg: Just to prove to everyone that I’m gay.
Maira: Yeah.
Alg: I have a Cocteau Twins tattoo now and it’s like, “Are you gay and emo? I am!”
[Maira laughs]
Maira: “You think you’re gay and emo? Because uh, look what I’ve got.”
[Alg laughs]
Alg: Look what I’ve got on me.
Maira: Yeah, I literally have “queer and sad” on me.
[Alg laughs]
Alg: That one’s so good.
Maira: Um, based off a patch that Kristen made! That their partner Geraldine-
Alg: Shout out to Geraldine!
Maira: Shout out to Geraldine!
Alg: Shout out to all our buds.
Maira: Yeah! Hell yeah, friends are great. Um, our friend Geraldine, on her first try, carved this really amazing cursive rubber stamp that says, “queer and sad,” and I was like, “Damn, that’s really good.”
Alg: Mhm.
Maira: And so, I went home sick from work one day at my last job, and I don’t think I was really sick, I just didn’t want to be there.
[Alg laughs]
Alg: Capitalism.
Maira: Capitalism. That job fucking sucked.
[Alg laughs]
Maira: I was just sitting in bed, and I did cursive upside-down stick and poke…
Alg: Really? It looks so good.
Maira: Yeah, thank you. I’ve got some Queer Anxiety Babiez tattoos. Or, I have one. Of our old logo, but we need a new logo, because now we’ve got Ali.
Alg: Yep! I’m here.
Maira: I mean, we’ve had Ali, for like a while…
[both laugh]
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: Our business card is just like, these hedgehog stickers I found, I think?
[Alg laughs]
Alg: I mean, I like how our “official picture” is just the one you photoshopped me onto a hamburger. That’s how I want to be seen, as a cheeseburger all the time.
Maira: And I didn’t have any colored photos of myself that I liked, so it’s like everything’s in color except for me and it’s black and white and I’m just staring thoughtfully into the distance.
[Alg laughs]
Maira: Yeah, it’s great. I love it.
Alg: Good times. No, I’m hoping that we’ll all be able to get together soon and get off of our hiatus a little bit, but also the great thing about zines is you can make your own deadlines for them!
Maira: Hell yeah.
Alg: Like, if you have a zine fest coming up, you can be like, “Okay, I’ll get something done by then, but if not, it’s fine.”
Maira: Yeah. I’m… So, I’m going to Grid Zine Fest, I keep forgetting if it’s Grid City Zine Fest or Grid Zine Fest, but I think it’s Grid Zine Fest in Salt Lake City in a couple of weeks.
Alg: Oh yeah, I remember that!
Maira: And I’m like… So, yesterday was the official-official-official deadline for Zine of the Hill 2.
Alg: Mhm.
Maira: Because I’ve been like, remember I made the call for submissions during Portland Zine Symposium last year?
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: I was like, I was like, “You know I kind of want to do this,” and then I was just like, “Fuck it, I’m doing it.”
[Alg laughs]
Maira: And I started drawing Bill Dauterive and-
Alg: In that like 90-degree room.
Maira: Oh my god, it was so sweaty.
[Alg laughs]
Maira: I was just like, I just decided that it was going to happen, and so I like, started posting about it on the internet instead of talking to people about buying my work, I was like, “Got to focus.”
Alg: Got to focus.
Maira: Yeah, so this has been a labor of love that I’ve been working on since July of last year.
Alg: Mhm.
Maira: Um, and I was trying to have it for EBABZ, but you know-
Both: Shit happens.
[Alg laughs]
Maira: Um, so I’m going to have it ready, it’s going to premiere at Grid Zine Fest on April 14th, so if you live in Salt Lake City, lucky you! Or, if you live around there, and you’ll be at the fest… you don’t have to live in Salt Lake City.
Alg: Super fun.
Maira: Yeah, I’m so excited! I definitely got tickets either, well, no, my friend bought us plane tickets-
[Alg laughs]
Maira: Just kind of on a whim. Uh, and it was either before I started working weekends or after, and I was like, “Well, you bought a ticket in my name, I guess I’ve got to go!”
[Alg laughs]
Maira: Thanks, Niko!
Alg: Oh, also, Bay Area Queer Zine Fest!
Maira: Oh, yeah, hell yeah, let’s talk about that. Um, Bay Area Queer Zine Fest I feel like I’ve mentioned in every episode and I talk about it a lot and I finally put it on my resume-
Alg: It’s your baby, yeah.
Maira: It’s my baby!
Alg: You did so much work for it last year.
Maira: After-
Alg: Brag about it.
Maira: Okay, so I put on a zine fest with a couple of other people, and it was after my house burned down.
Alg: Mhm.
Maira: Last summer was a lot.
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: Um, but, Bay Area Queer Zine Fest is coming back this summer and it’s going to be great. I was going to say, “I think,” but no, it’s going to be great.
Alg: It’s going to be great, yeah.
Maira: Um, Alg is going to help organize.
Alg: Mhm.
Maira: We’ve got people interested already; we’re looking at venues.
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: It’s going to be tight, so look out for that.
Alg: And it’s going to be later in the summer this year than it was last summer.
Maira: Yeah!
Alg: Which is exciting because that means I’ll be able to go to the fest itself, because last year it was during one of the festivals I was working.
Maira: Yeah. I was like, I think I also just like started planning it way later than I did last year.
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: Because it comes up a lot on my Facebook memories and I’m just like, “Fuck, I was so much better prepared last year.”
Alg: Time is an illusion.
Maira: Time is fake.
[Alg laughs]
Maira: So is gender, everyone just eat trash, I think that’s a meme of a raccoon that I have on my phone somewhere. And so yeah, it’s going to be in August probably, or like late July.
Alg: Yeah, it’ll be good though, I’m excited for it already.
Maira: Yeah, if you’re queer and make zines, hit me up, or it’s at like… just look up Bay Area Queer Zine Fest, I’ve got my hands in so many fucking different pots right now.
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: That I’m like, “Just hit me up and I’ll direct it where it needs to go!”
[Alg laughs]
Maira: Um…
Alg: Yeah, no it’s going to be super fun.
Maira: I’m so excited, last year was so good.
Alg: I know, I had such… I hate the term “fomo” because, you know, basic.
[Maira laughs]
Alg: For neurotypical people. But, um, I had such bad fomo because I was like, “Damn.”
Maira: We made a moon!
Alg: Yeah. The photobooth…
Maira: The fest itself was really fun and really cool but the thing I was most proud of was we made this fucking 6-foot papier mache moon the night before the fest. And then I stuck a little trans flag in it because like, let’s be real, the moon is trans.
Alg: The moon is definitely trans.
Maira: And-
Alg: So is the ocean.
Maira: Yeah. And then we just like, hung it from the rafters or some shit.
[Alg laughs]
Maira: And yeah, we had a really cute photobooth, and I had the whole week before the fest off of work and I just like, holed up in my apartment and made props.
Alg: Y’all did so much great work for it, and I just heard from everyone that it was very special, so I think y’all should be very proud.
Maira: Shout out to everyone else who organized last year!
[Alg laughs]
Maira: And shout out to everyone who tabled. And to everyone who is organizing this year. Even if we don’t have a coherent- we’re working on it.
Alg: We have a doodle.
Maira: I think we have a doodle, yeah.
Alg: I filled out a doodle today.
Maira: We have a doodle, we’re official.
[Alg laughs]
Maira: It’s not times, it’s just days. But, you know, we’re getting there. We’ve got a doodle! So, we’re adults.
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: I also included like, people who only vaguely expressed interest, but I sent this really official sounding email from the Queer Zine Fest email and I was like, “Thank you for your interest in um, organizing this fest,” and my friend emailed me back and was like, “Yo, I didn’t sign up for this, but okay!”
[Alg laughs]
Alg: Sounds fake, but okay.
Maira: Yeah, so I texted them and was like, “I’m sorry, I thought you wanted to do it! Ahhh!” And they haven’t texted me back. But I don’t think they’re mad at me.
Alg: No, I don’t think they’re mad at you.
Maira: I hope not.
Alg: That’d be a weird thing to be mad about.
Maira: Yeah.
Alg: People have been mad at me about weirder things.
Maira: Yeah, all I did was send an email.
[Alg laughs]
Maira: And assume. And you know what happens when you assume. You’re usually wrong.
Alg: Yeah. You make an ass out of you and me.
Maira: Also, that.
Alg: Read that in Gossip Girl when I was like twelve. And I will never forget it.
[Maira laughs]
Maira: That’s my favorite thing to say, but lately I’ve just been being like, fucking with people and just like, “Ya wrong.”
[Alg laughs]
Maira: I think mostly just to piss off my coworkers.
Alg: My new thing is saying, “We’re all trying to live out loud.”
Maira: Ooh.
Alg: Because I used to say, “Live, laugh, love,” but I feel like, “Live out loud” is like-
Maira: My neighbors have a “Live, laugh, love” doormat. I’ll show it to you before you leave.
Alg: Oh, god. I’m going to take a picture of it, that’s so embarrassing.
Maira: Yeah, I hope they’re not sitting outside.
[both laugh]
Maira: Because sometimes they do!
Alg: Good for them, getting outside.
Maira: Yeah, it’s nighttime, go inside.
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: So, you’re working on something with your sister…
Alg: Yeah! My big sister, uh, Sonia, shout out to Sonia.
Maira: Shout out to Sonia. There’s so many shout outs on this podcast, and that’s what I’m here for.
Alg: Yeah, because like-
Maira: That’s really what this is about, is shouting people out.
Alg: Yeah, again, I’m going to be hell of gay and the best part about zines is community, and feeling, I was going to say like less of a freak, but that there are other people like you is really nice.
Maira: Yeah, everyone can be freaks together.
Alg: Yeah, we’re all freaks together, we all make weird art, and I’m excited for my favorite thing is when older people come to the zine fest.
Maira: Yeah!
Alg: I can’t wait until we’re all older and still running zine fests, it’s going to be so much fun.
Maira: I love just like, the range. I love when kids come to zine fests-
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: Even though sometimes it stresses me out because little kids stress me out, but I love when kids are like, “Oh, what is this! Oh!” and they’re so excited about it. And I wish that I had learned about zines that young-
Alg: Me too, yeah.
Maira: And I wish that I had known that like, creative output… I don’t know, I got like, discouraged.
Alg: Oh, totally.
Maira: From writing fiction when I was a kid. And it’s like, damn if I had just stuck with it I wouldn’t have had to wait until college to get into zines.
Alg: Mhm.
Maira: I wouldn’t have had to find them on the internet.
Alg: Yeah, totally.
Maira: But like, shout out to tumblr for-
Alg: Oh my god.
Maira: I want to say tumblr “back in the day,” but it was really like, 2011 and 2010, I feel like that’s when it was in its prime.
Alg: Definitely in its prime. Um-
Maira: I learned so much about zines and gender and myself and memes-
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: Which, I feel like those… three of those things really make up myself.
[Alg laughs]
Alg: Yeah, no, um, and also I’m a big fan of internet connections and I got into writing because of fanfiction.
Maira: Ooh, like fanfiction.net?
Alg: No, I used Livejournal.
Maira: Oh, Livejournal.
Alg: Cannot remember my password, and it’s a private account and I can’t remember the URL, but it was attached to my old AOL account, which is now deactivated, but I wrote like, so much fanfiction as a youth.
Maira: AOL?
[both laugh]
Alg: Yeah, it was what, like, 2005, 2006? Everyone had AOL, it was cool.
Maira: Oh, okay, I won’t make fun of you then. [Alg laughs] I am currently making fun of someone for using AOL in the year of our lord, 2018.
Alg: Um, my therapist uses Hotmail, which I think is really funny.
Maira: But yeah, Livejournal! Which also comes up every time I open my mouth, basically.
Alg: No, I mean, yeah I’m a big believer in connections through the internet. That’s how I made so many friends and stayed alive, I think.
Maira: Oh, yeah.
Alg: Through many dark ti- I remember I got on tumblr in 2009, 2010, which was like, my senior year of high school and I was going through my first depressive episode. And I wrote so much sad, emo poetry.
Maira: That makes me feel really old.
[Alg laughs]
Alg: You’re like, two years older than me?
Maira: Because I was like, on my way out of college?
Alg: Oh, really?
Maira: Well, 2010 I was in my junior year. I think just the juxtaposition of high school with me thinking yeah, I was living in San Francisco at the time. I don’t know.
[Alg laughs]
Maira: Time is fake! We have established this!
Alg: Yeah, the moon is trans.
Maira: If you take anything away from this podcast-
Alg: The moon is trans.
Maira: The moon is trans, and time is fake. And zines are great.
Alg; And I have a great Twitter presence.
Maira: And yeah.
Alg: That’s the only thing you need to know from this podcast.
Maira: Honestly? Um-
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: Yeah. But yeah so, Livejournal, sorry. Tangent.
Alg: Oh yeah, so that’s when I really got into writing and really started, because I remember I watched, oh my god, how real do I want to get? I watched a lot of porn growing up, and was like, “This is all so violent and scary.” And then like, I found Harry Potter fanfiction, and it was all so tender and sweet, and that’s when I was like, “Oh, okay.” And looking back, that’s probably when I started identifying less as like, a girl, because it was like, “Oh, gender can be weird, fun. And you can explore things.” But yeah, I wrote Hermione/Luna fanfiction.
Maira: Ooh.
Alg: So good, my little closeted self. On my family’s computer in my dad’s room. Ooh, good times.
[both laugh]
Maira: I just think back to being younger and had like, had I known about zines-
Alg: Mhm.
Maira: Or like, been exposed to that… Because like, my sister, my younger sister was really into fanfiction, but I never got into it.
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: But I was so into Livejournal, and I’m still friends with like a mill- not a million, people from Livejournal, I don’t have that many friends. But like, I’m still really close with a lot of people I met on Livejournal-
Alg: Yeah!
Maira: Um, and I wish that I had I known about zines or like-
[Alg clears their throat]
Maira: Gender variance? That like, would have been so helpful as a kid.
Alg: Yeah, of course.
Maira: So, we carry this zine called “genderqueer” through our distro, um, that was made by someone from Oakland. And honestly? If you want a copy, we’ll hook it up for free. Because like, I don’t know, I think that shit is really helpful for like, kids.
Alg: Yeah, we’ve definitely had teachers come up to our booth and buy it, or people who are like, “I want to give this to my parents.” It’s a very good, like-
Maira: Gender 101 primer.
Alg: Yeah. That’s usually what we say. And I think it’s so true because it’s hard to have those conversations, and like especially with parents. So-
Maira: I literally took one to my parents’ house, like two Christmases ago, left it half-tucked under a pile of whatever the fuck, and didn’t say anything.
[Alg laughs]
Maira: And just left their house. And I think I got a text like, two weeks later that was like, “Hey, you left your zine here.” And I was like, “It’s for you.”
Alg: “It’s for you.”
Maira: Um, because yeah those conversations are really hard to have. Like, I don’t know, zines are so informative, and you can learn so much from them. And basically, I just really wish I had zines like, earlier in life.
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: For sure.
Alg: Oh, totally. Like, I think it’s just nice to know there are so many paths to creativity. And not everything has to go through these really gross structures of publishing, and you don’t have to be really criticized for your art, that’s what I like about it, is that, because I took like, creative writing classes in college and it was always like, very intimidating and very demoralizing to get all these critiques on my writing. And I make zines now and everyone’s like, “Your writing’s great! You’re doing great,” and it’s lovely.
Maira: Yeah, dude that’s my experience with like, zines now and also my creative writing class that I’m taking. It’s very affirming because like, I don’t know, I like my writing, I feel like it fits a very specific need for me-
Alg: Your writing is great.
Maira: Thanks, but it’s also, I don’t know, I don’t enjoy writing poetry, but we just did a poetry section-
Alg: Hm, interesting.
Maira: In creative writing, and like, I don’t know, I didn’t know about prose poetry-
Alg: Yeah!
Maira: Because that’s what I prefer, I think. And it was really nice to get like, good feedback.
Alg: Mhm.
Maira: No one was ever like, “You suck at poetry, this doesn’t rhyme!”
[Alg laughs]
Maira: Because poetry doesn’t have to rhyme.
Alg: It doesn’t have to rhyme.
Maira: Apparently. No other English class ever told me that.
Alg: Nope.
Both: Um-
Maira: Except for that fucking William Carlos Williams poem, “This is Just to Say.” I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox, that one.
[Alg laughs]
Alg: Oh, that one!
Maira: That one turned into a meme!
Alg: Oh my god, love it.
Maira: There’s a really good one where it’s uh, Lou Bega’s “Mambo Number 5” but it’s that poem.
[Alg laughs]
Alg: Ugh, I fucking love memes.
Maira: I think I’ll post it. [indistinguishable] Comcast, it will be the cover image.
Alg: I need to also find because, well, the classic lyric from pop maven Katie Perry, the “Do you ever feel like a plastic bag?”
Maira: Uh huh.
Alg: Someone photoshopped that onto a Charles Bukowski book. But also, fuck Charles Bukowski. People reblogged it on tumblr and were like, “Wow, this is so beautiful and meaningful.” And it was from a Katie Perry song, which will forever be my favorite thing on the internet. Except for, “I am a dog, I am a communist, I like knives.”
Maira: Oh yeah! Hell yeah!
[Alg laughs]
Maira: That’s my cover photo right now.
Alg: So good.
[36:09 – 36:11 recording blip]
Maira: I am a dog, [laughs] I am a communist, I love knives.
Alg: Yeah, no, my cover photo is “Are you a boy or a girl,” and it’s a drawing of a skeleton-
Maira: That’s one of my favorite things on the internet.
Alg: Yeah, I’m thinking of getting it as a tattoo. It’s like a skeleton and two kids are asking it, “Are you a boy or a girl?” and the skeleton just replies, “I’m dead!”
Maira: That’s-
[Alg laughs]
Alg: I just really want it as a tattoo because it’s my gender. Like…
Maira: I’m dead!
Alg: I’m dead. We’re all dying.
Maira: We’re all dying. And nobody’s really a boy or girl unless you really… I guess that’s not true.
Alg: Unless you feel passionately about it.
Maira: Yeah. I’ve never felt passionately about being a gender, but if you feel passionate about being a boy or a girl, guess what?
Alg: You got it.
Maira: You got it. That’s you.
Alg: Be who you want to be.
Maira: Live your truth. Just do it.
Alg: Don’t be an asshole.
Maira: Yeah, don’t be an asshole.
Alg: Or if you are an asshole, be-
Maira: Less of an asshole?
Alg: An asshole to people who deserve it.
Maira: Yeah!
Alg: Yeah, I was in a Lyft and it was like, this guy from Boston who kept talking about Trump.
Maira: Ugh.
Alg: Because my Lyft had a pro-Trump sticker and-
Maira: Ugh.
Alg: I gave a bad review, which I never give Lyfts or Ubers bad reviews because like, their jobs are hard, but I was just like, nope, not today. You can’t have that. You can’t… I don’t know, it’s always such an odd experience getting aggressively misgendered on a car ride when you’re like, already in an uncomfortable situation and it’s like, “Oh yeah, she was saying this, and she was saying that.” And I was like, who… Sometimes, I-
Maira: Literally-
Both: Who is she!?
Alg: No literally, yeah. That’s actually [laughs] I’m going to make that into a meme.
Maira: Same!
Alg: No literally, who is she? It’s so true. But anyway, zines, prose, I love prose poetry.
Maira: I have a newfound love for prose poetry.
Alg: That was the first style I ever really wrote in, and it has a very dear place to my heart. Sometimes it can feel kind of alt-lit, which I-
Maira: Yeah.
Alg: Don’t really like. Or like, 2012-era like, fucking Spencer Madsen or whatever, whatever his name is.
Maira: Who?
Alg: Um, it’s this guy who was really good friends with Tao Lin, um and he made this thing that was like, he wrote terrible prose poetry, but then he also published an e-mail from his ex-girlfriend who was asking him not to write about her anymore. And then I was like, “I can’t do alt-lit shit anymore.”
Maira: Dude, like, I don’t know. That’s weird! Because I think about all the people that I write about, and they’re all obviously people from my past, but what if they found my stuff and were like, “Stop!”
[Alg laughs]
Maira: I don’t think any of them care enough?
Alg: Yeah, he was using, yeah, I just think in that situation, it wasn’t… I usually write about people who, you know, did me wrong-
Maira: Oh, yeah.
Alg: The situation was like she broke up with him because he was a loser. And then like-
Maira: Oh, and he was just salty about it?
Alg: Yeah, he was just salty about it. And like, did the thing that fucking Beat Generation did where they just, “Ugh, I hate my mom, I love sex, I smoked a cigarette, um.”
Maira: I was so into beat poetry in like, my junior year of high school.
Alg: Oh, me too.
Maira: And I feel like that opened a lot of doors for me, but I also regret it deeply.
[Maira laughs]
Alg: Interestingly enough, the only poem I have memorized is a Frank O’Hara poem, and he was kind of Beat Generation-y, but he was like, cute and gay. Shout out to him.
Maira: Yeah, I was just like, I read On the Road and was like, “Oh my god, it’s so romantic. Let me read,” like we had this class project um, in junior year of high school and it was like, read an autobiography or read a biography.
[Alg laughs]
Maira: And so, I chose a female beat poet, but it was still, thinking back it’s very upsetting.
Alg: Oh, yeah. Like I think back about all the terrible art that I loved-
Maira: So much internalized misogyny.
Alg: Oh my god, so much internalized misogyny. My favorite book used to be The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac.
Maira: Uh huh.
Alg: And that one is I’d say even worse than On the Road, and is romanticization slash, romanticization while simultaneously disregarding women. It’s like viewing them as total manic pixie dream girls-
Maira: The original.
Alg: The original, yeah, where those women, those poor women in those books like were probably very interesting, complex people. But-
Maira: But they got boiled down to like-
Alg: “We fucked in the bath, and then she said I was distant,” I don’t know, I can’t even do a good impersonation anymore.
Maira: Because it sucks so bad!
[Alg laughs]
Maira: I want to talk about something I’m working on.
Alg: Yeah!
Maira: I know you’re the guest, but-
Alg: No, I was going to ask, like-
Maira: Okay.
Alg: I know you’ve talked about why you love zines, but I want to know what you’re working on right now.
Maira: Yeah. Um, I… so I’ve been sober for three years now, no drinking, and it’s been really rough, like especially recently. And I’m pretty depressed right now, um, I wouldn’t say I’m like, super depressed, but it’s like, I don’t know, things are on the up-and-up for me.
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: And now they’re just kind of like, baseline. So, I feel like, I don’t know, yeah. Things aren’t great, so they feel terrible. Even though like, outwardly I feel like things are still going pretty well for me-
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: My stupid brain chemistry is like, “Ha ha! Not today!”
Alg: I just want to feel numb, not depressed, but just sort of numb to everything.
Maira: Yeah! I just don’t really feel anything right now, so last night I started like, crying, and I was like, “I guess I should write about sobriety and depression.” Um, so I started writing a zine last night that I’m going to try to finish in the next few days. Um, yeah.
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: And try to have at Grid Zine Fest. And then I’m also working on Zine of the Hill 2, which, I got a lot of really good submissions that I’m very excited about.
Alg: Nice! Y’all should have a release party for that.
Maira: Okay, so, Niko was like, “Have it at my house, and we can…”
Both: Barbeque, yeah.
Maira: But…
Alg: I’m excited to just cosplay as Dale and chain smoke and talk about the government and conspiracies.
Maira: Oh my god. I’m going to do my Bobby costume again probably.
[Alg laughs]
Maira: I have green shorts, but the green shorts I was wearing that Halloween had this like, zipper pocket across the butt.
Alg: Sure.
Maira: And they didn’t have any other pockets.
Alg: Makes sense.
Maira: So, like, I’d stick my phone in it, and my best friend would be like, “You look like you took a shit in your pants.”
[Alg laughs]
Maira: And I was just really drunk because I drank at the time, and was just like, “I’m Bobby Hill!”
[Alg laughs]
Maira: Which, you know, doesn’t justify anything.
Alg: No, but-
Maira: I was just like, look, I found these shorts, they fit me perfectly, they have a butt pocket, like…
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: An amazing butt pocket. I don’t know.
Alg: We’re all living in the darkest timeline right now, is my theory, so those shorts seem to fit well with the darkest timeline, only having a pocket in the back.
Maira: Yeah.
Alg: Yeah, like that makes no sense.
Maira: They were really stretchy. Like that nice, stretchy denim.
Alg: I love that. I like, ripped my only pair of jeans that aren’t mom jeans. I guess dad jeans. Gender is fake. Um, unless you don’t want it to be. Um, and I’m really disappointed, and now I have to find more work pants [laughs]. And that’s my really dumb, 9-5 work story of the day.
Maira: Oh, man, I’m so happy at my current job, I can wear shorts and tights.
Alg: Mhm.
Maira: Like it’s 2012 again.
Alg: Ugh, I know, it’s an iconic look.
Maira: It’s just cut up t-shirts, shorts, and tights. And they can be ripped tights.
Alg: Ooh, nice.
Maira: Which like, most of my tights are ripped because I’m clumsy as hell.
Alg: And tights rip so easily.
Maira: Oh, my god! They do!
Alg: Well, I’m glad you brought that up, because I have a pair of ripped tights that I wore last night, and someone commented on them, and it was really strange.
Maira: In like a negative way?
Alg: It was like, “Wow, I haven’t seen anyone wearing ripped tights in a really long time.” What a weird thing to say to somebody!
Maira: Yeah.
Alg: Like, I’m also bad at conversations at parties, but like-
Maira: Not that bad! That’s like, another level of bad.
[Alg laughs]
Alg: That’s just like, how to make people uncomfortable at parties. Yeah.
Maira: Which is usually my forte.
[Alg laughs]
Maira: Honestly. Actually, I don’t really even, I don’t go to parties. But if I do go to parties, I don’t talk to anyone.
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: I just like, talk to the people I came with. I don’t know-
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: I don’t make friends. I write sins, not tragedies, okay.
Alg: Yeah, the only difference between martyrdom and suicide is press coverage.
Maira: I’m shrugging right now.
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: I know none of you can see this, but I’m shrugging.
Alg: I’m excited to listen to this.
[Maira laughs]
Alg: It’s very meta to talk about me listening to this but, I love podcasts. So, I’m very excited to be here, and I think it’s a cool project and-
Maira: Thanks!
Alg: Maira is great.
Maira: Thanks! Um-
Alg: Um, I wanted to, is it okay if I read?
Maira: Oh my god, yeah.
Alg: This is like, the first thing I ever had published in a real magazine, it was in the Totemeal issue which I referenced earlier, but I have a terrible short-term memory, and I’m assuming a lot of our listeners do as well. Um, okay, so this is called, “Reminders.” Abandonment is necessary for self-invention. It’s okay to be ugly. Touch a frozen orange to your neck and look at the objects around you. The abuse you have experienced does not negate the harm you have done to others. This isn’t supposed to make you happy; it’s supposed to help you survive. Take note of places that are not sites of violence. The exciting and the terrifying exist in an imperfect dichotomy. Drink water, take your drugs, talk to at least four people each day, stretch, breathe, and check your email. Destroy and rebuild, and destroy and rebuild, and destroy and rebuild, and destroy and rebuild. That’s it.
[snapping sounds]
Maira: This is me snapping.
Alg: That’s me snapping at myself.
Maira: Something you do after poems.
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: Um-
Alg: Yeah I remember I was just so scared, and then um, I don’t know. I just really like reading my old writing and being like, “Wow! That was like, three years ago.”
Maira: That was fucking great.
Alg: Thank you.
Maira: Um, I like, getting ready for Dear Diary Zine Fest re-looked at… no-
Alg: Revisited?
Maira: Revisited! Yes!
Alg: We’re writers.
Maira: Academia.
[Alg laughs]
Maira: I can’t even say that right. Uh, yeah I was revisiting a lot of my old work because I feel like, back then I was just like, really raw.
Alg: Mhm.
Maira: And I was putting everything I was feeling onto paper-
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: And it reminded me of… it was like, 2014.
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: And I was just like, I don’t know, it’s cool to revisit your old stuff and just be like, “Damn.” And we talked about this earlier-
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: It’s just like having something tangible like, “Yes, I was depressed, but look at what I got,” and-
Alg: Oh, yeah.
Maira: It reminded me of the first time I ever read.
Alg: Mhm.
Maira: Um, so, I have this really, really, really personal zine called “This Goddamn Body,” I haven’t read it in a really long time because whenever I read it, it makes me cry.
Alg: Oh, yeah totally.
Maira: Because it’s about mental illness, trauma, and bodies.
Alg: Mhm.
Maira: But at the time, I was like, really, really passionate about it. And I always tell people it’s my favorite thing I’ve ever written.
Alg: Mhm.
Maira: But I’m afraid to revisit it for that reason.
Alg: Oh, of course, yeah.
Maira: But I was reading a piece, a poem I wrote in that zine and I just like, I couldn’t… I finished it but I just started sobbing halfway through because it’s, it’s about like sexual abuse and being a kid and gender and like-
Alg: Yeah, how scary being a kid is, honestly. It’s a scary time.
Maira: Yeah, just all the fun, fucked up shit that comes with, I don’t know, being a weird kid. Reading is hard [heavily sighs]. Poetry is hard. But it all feels good… most of the time it feels good in the end.
Alg: I think so.
Maira: It feels very like, satisfying.
Alg: I always get an adrenaline rush after I read.
Maira: Yeah!
Alg: People… because I like making things sad and funny, I feel like is my style. Um, because life I think is very sad and also very funny. It’s like a really depressing sitcom, in my opinion, is how I view my life.
Maira: Yeah.
Alg: Um, and, I always like when people laugh when they’re supposed to laugh. But, and then go like, “Hmm,” when they’re supposed to, it’s just really… I don’t know, I love reading and I love hearing other people read. And I need to organize something soon because I really… it’s one of my favorite things.
Maira: Yeah, that reading at E.M. Wolfman was really fun.
Alg: Yeah! I don’t… I’ll have to send you, I actually posted in like a comment, because that piece was my favorite one I’ve ever written. It was a piece about, it was right after my grandma passed away, and I wrote a whole piece about her and childhood and it was really wonderful to read. And I got a lot of good feedback from it, and… good times.
Maira: I don’t want to read anything this episode. Just because-
Alg: Yeah!
Maira: I think I want to start reading my own work on this podcast.
Alg: You should! I would love that. I would love to hear that.
Maira: Yeah.
Alg: Everyone should read all their work always.
Maira: Yeah.
Alg: [singsong] Because zines are about sharing.
Maira: Yay, communism.
[Alg laughs]
Maira: That’s where that went because I’m a dog and I love knives.
Alg: I am a dog and I love knives.
Maira: Do you have anything else you want to plug? Or talk about? Or-
Alg: Um, yeah! Just in general, look out for, I mean I think I use Instagram the most out of any social media app, because it’s like, public – I don’t have a private Instagram account for some reason.
Maira: Do you want me to like, link your Instagram?
Alg: Oh my god, that would be cool.
Maira: Okay.
Alg: @velvetdad, very memorable username.
Maira: Quality content.
Alg: Quality content.
Maira: The content that I am personally here for.
Alg: Just memes and videos of me dancing with very personal captions. Even though like, a lot of my coworkers follow me now. But I’m like, whatever!
Maira: Dude, yeah my, so, all of my coworkers- most of my coworkers follow me, and two of my partner’s aunts follow me.
Alg: Oh my god.
Maira: And I’ll post like, like lately I’ve been posting like, “I’m very depressed, please hang out with me,” and like, Ben’s aunts are like, “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Like it’s so sweet and I’m just like, “ohhh.”
[Alg laughs]
Maira: And then I’m like, why do I post this on the internet?! And then I’m like, wait the internet is weirdly my safe space.
Alg: Oh my god, it totally is.
Maira: Shit-posting my emotions.
Alg: My thing is I can’t be stoned and go on Instagram. I’ll be scrolling through my own account like, “What the fuck am I doing?”
Maira: Oh, I do the opposite.
Alg: Really? [laughs]
Maira: Okay, sometimes, even when I’m not stoned, I’ll like, scroll through my own internet presence, and I’ll just be like, “Damn, I would be friends with me.”
Alg: Yeah.
Maira: “I post some good shit.” And I’ll just look over at my partner and he’ll be like, shaking his head but also like, “Yeah, I mean, okay, we’re dating so I obviously like what you post.”
[Alg laughs]
Alg: Yeah. My thing is I’ll go through and be like, “Why can’t I just date myself?” I mean, you can, whatever, single positivity. But literally, I wish I just had a clone so I could date myself.
Maira: Yeah.
Alg: That’d be so much fun, we’d make such a good pairing, have like, the erotic nightmare of having sex with yourself. I think about that all the time. This is Ali.
[Maira laughs]
Maira: Thanks for listening, everybody! We’re going to end on that note.
[Alg laughs]
Alg: No!
Maira: That’s a strong finish.
Alg: That’s a strong finish. We stuck the landing, we did it.
Maira: Ten! I’m holding up a placard that says 10.
Alg: Um, thanks for listening, thanks for having me.
Maira: Yeah, thanks for coming over.
Alg: This was really fun. And not as scary as I thought.
Maira: Yay!
[both snapping]
Maira: Snaps! Snaps all around. Alright, thank you for listening again to Long Arm Stapler! If you have any questions, shoot me an email:
[email protected]. Hit me up on Facebook, whatever, I’m always on the internet.
Alg: Mhm.
Maira: Um, yeah, bye!
[51:52 outro music begins]
Alg: Bye!
0 notes