July preview: introducing Feld-Month and the first ever Big Whoop Zine!

Well, folks, we are a mere seventeen days away from July. July is a special month for me. Why? Well, I got married on July 3rd, 2012. July is also the month the Gathering of the Juggalos takes place. Consequently it is going to be a very big month at Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place. On an equally important note, July will be the first theme month in the site’s history. 

More specifically, July will be the first, and perhaps last, Feld-Month, a month devoted to exploring the legacy of musician, actor and icon Corey Feldman. Honestly, I suspect covering Feldman’s music extensively for My World of Flops might have been one of the things that got the column killed at The A.V Club. 

Yet I am deluded enough to imagine that an entire month of Feldman-themed content will do good things for this site’s popularity and success. What will Feldman month consist of? I plan to write about Feldman’s memoir Coreyography, for Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place’s Literature Society. For my upcoming feature Squeakquels, I will finally see and tackle both Rock N Roll High School Forever and Dream A Little Dream 2. For Control Nathan Rabin, I’ll give readers a chance to choose between Feldman’s directorial debut Busted or South Beach Academy.  

For the climax of Feldmonth, I’ll attend Feldman and his angel’s Atlanta gig on July 23rd. Then I’ll get on a Greyhound to Saint Louis, where I will meet a slew of nieces and nephews I’ve never met, as well as a pair of half-sisters I’ve only met once, decades ago. I plan to visit my mother’s grave and witness the burnt-out crater where her house used to stand before burning down a few months ago. I’m not sure whether it will be cathartic or masochistic to want to look at the burnt-out hole where my childhood might have been, but it’s rare that you encounter metaphors in life that powerful or on-the-nose. 

Then my brother and nephew will drive down to Oklahoma City for the 17th annual Gathering of the Juggalos, which is being held at a venue that also includes a water park. I cannot wait to see Juggalos on water slides, just as I could not be more excited to finally have a chance to see Vanilla Ice perform at the Gathering. I plan to dance harder to “Ice Ice Baby” than I’ve ever danced before. 

I plan to write about all of these experiences extensively for the site, in the form of voluminous daily coverage. I also plan to turn some of these experiences into a book building off of 7 Days In Ohio. 

But I’m also planning to do something new this year. 

I’ve always wanted to write a 1990s-style zine and this seems like the perfect opportunity. By the end of July I plan to be finished with Juggalos On Waterslides: The Big Whoop Zine # 1. I’m excited about my July plans but I need money to realize them. Right now, money is in short supply, so I’m printing up 100 copies of The Big Whoop zine that will only be available to people who contribute to the 9 dollar tier of my Patreon page. All of the content in the zine will be exclusive to it, including, possibly, an interview with Vanilla Ice. 

Now at this point you might be asking yourselves some questions, so I thoughtfully included the following theoretical conversation to answer any and all questions you might have. 

You: Don’t you ask for money a lot? 

Me: I guess so. 

You: How come? 

Me: I really need money. 

You: You can’t need it that badly, can you? 

Me: No, I pretty much do. 

You: Don’t you feel embarrassed or at least self-conscious asking strangers for money on the internet so frequently? Don’t you have any dignity or self-respect?  

Me: Sometimes. More self-conscious than embarrassed, to be honest. And I’m a Juggalo looking to attend his 6th Gathering. That should answer the question about dignity. 

You: Aren’t you about done with this whole Juggalo thing? Does anyone really care about Juggalos other than you at this point? 

Me: What are you, my wife? No. I’m not done with the Juggalo thing and I have absolute faith in my ability to write about The Gathering this year in ways that are fresh and new and interesting and different. 

You: If we give you some money, will you stop asking? 

Me: I’d like to think that I’ll at least slow down at some point, but right now the site is in its infancy. In just seven weeks, I’ve already raised about 2/3rds of my goal. The dream of being able to support myself doing work that I love for an audience that knows, yet likes me, feels too tantalizingly possible for me not to pursue it aggressively, though I apologize if I sometimes come off like a dude who only stops writing long enough to stick his hand out and ask for money. 

Support Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place at https://www.patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace