this zine
because I'm bad at event planning but pretty good at making weird shit with my friends.
I’m supposed to be planning a party right now. I’m supposed to be reaching out to all the people I love and asking them to take a 60+ minute train ride down to the Rockaways to kick off the summer and maybe-kind-of celebrate my dreaded 30th birthday, which I tried to glide past unnoticed in the depths of winter. But party planning makes me nauseous. The logistics are dizzying, and the steady stream of rejection, even though it isn’t personal and I would never ask you to miss your second-cousin’s third wedding, piles up like gravel in the pit of my stomach. It’s only a matter of time until I give up, or barf, or both.
So instead of planning a party, I just made an unnecessarily elaborate invite — a nearly 40-page zine — because I don’t mind making magazines. I’ve been making print media, in one form or another, for literally half my life. It’s muscle memory at this point.
Plus I am surrounded by brilliant, hilarious, creative shitheads (who I love dearly), and I figured if I bullied them into writing for the zine then they would have to come to my party. So I sent them emails like this:
And this:
And for some reason they obliged me.
So now, the zine is out in the world. My half-assed foray into party planning is over. Whatever happens on June 15, the day of the alleged party, is none of my business. I will be on the beach — Beach 98th Street, to be exact. It’d be cool if you were too! But regardless, I got to make something weird and fun with my friends, and that’s really all I ever want to do.
If you want a copy, you can dm me or hit up the following homies (a.k.a. “contributors”). They wrote heartfelt odes to Riis, deep-cut dining guides, and even snagged an “elevated nutcracker” recipe for you to try at home. There are phrases like “wind-cheese coagulation situation” and “Winnie the Pooh with a limp dick.” There are graphic descriptions of at least two bare butts. There’s low-res art and incomprehensible inside jokes and probably typos and grammatical errors because I was never meant to be an editor. But that’s part of its charm, I think.
contributors, aiders and abetters, enablers, etc.
Hanna Bird, a proud Rockaway resident She lives with her wife-to-be, Lauren, and two furry sons — Mingo and Chowder.
Clio Chang, a writer who is trying to learn how to surf in the Rockaways.
Britina Cheng, a writer and artist from Gravesend. She self-published a graphic novel, re:bound, in 2018.
Samer Kalaf, the managing editor of Defector. He enjoys all kinds of sandwiches, at the beach or elsewhere.
Claire Landsbaum, the Deputy Features Editor at Business Insider. Previously, she edited Vanity Fair’s Hive and covered politics and gay things for New York Magazine and The Cut.
Shahin Motia, a guitarist for the band Oneida who has called the Rockaways home for the past seven years. You’ve probably seen him on the boardwalk on his yellow bike.
Will Peischel, a Brooklyn-based writer who is naked under his clothes.
Jacob Rosenberg, an editor at Mother Jones. He sometimes runs from Brooklyn to the Rockaways just for fun.
Camille Squires, a Cancer and a self-identified Summer Baby. She’s a politics editor by day, but would almost always rather be on a beach.
Laura Wagner, a reporter from Hagerstown, MD. She lives in Brooklyn with Alex and Jakey Baby and she loves to play spikeball.
Lindsey Weber, a writer and the co-host of the podcast Who? Weekly. She has a bungalow in the Rockaways and would love to be better at surfing. She’s working on it.
Maybe I’ll publish my opening essay, which received a masterful edit from Flaming Hydra’s own Tommy Craggs, another time. Additional credit goes to the locals and tourists alike, who filled the zine, and the Rockaway peninsula, with their stories, recommendations, and unadulterated summertime joy. Shout out to Mike Kololyan for letting me bring the party-that-I-refuse-to-actually-plan to Connolly’s. And to Dan King: thanks for making this place feel like home for so many people. You’re still the life of the party, even in death.