Okay it's been five years since you started this nonsense ... it's been five years since you first stumbled into your Writing Career. It's tough to get worked up about these things, especially when the big thing on your mind is what exactly will go in your next zine. Oh sure, those couple paragraphs and two-or-three amusing anecdotes that you wrote in your notebook are a swell outline - but what comes next?

You go to the bar because that is what you do. Because it beats sitting at home drinking Miller High Life longnecks and staring at the TV or playing some discs, hoping somehow something will sound different tonight. If you go to the bar and drink some real beer, maybe it'll feel like a real anniversary.

Lyndale Avenue is empty, (thankfully: Lord how you hate Lyndale ... especially how further south on it the lanes aren't divided and it's sheer anarchy and you feel unsafe no matter what speed you drive or in what lane-that-is-not-a-lane lane you drive in and every house after house has their cute little "We Live Here" signs ... excuse the rest of us - but where else did YOU THINK we thought you lived??) and of course the CC Club is full. You manage to find a spot at the bar.

You pull up a stool near the door and order a beer. To your right is some ultra-cute chick who looks kinda like Jackie from "That Seventies Show," which is swell. Unfortunately, she also sounds like Jackie from "That Seventies Show." Worse, she's discussing her ongoing spiritual enlightenment. There is some good-looking dude next to her, agreeing with her every valley-girl-like-sounding word. He's playing her, and she's falling. As you stare into the mirror behind the bar, you can see her twirling her long hair in her index finger and you can see the dude pretending to hang on her every word. You smile a smug smile.

Down a few stools to your left is some portly dude who frowns at you quite often. What? Is it your boyish good looks? (No, you are no longer boyish: you didn't get carded coming in here.) Is it your controversial points of view? (No, you haven't said a damn thing yet.) You decide Fat Boy doesn't like you because of your Fighting Sioux hockey hat. So you just know he's a Gopher fan - you've got that feeling. If Dubya decided to bomb Canada or Wisconsin just for the hell of it, this guy'd be behind him one-hundred-and-ten percent. You wait for him to open his mouth, just so you can ask him how old he was in 1979.

I remember it being cold when I typed up the first issue of my first zine, which was a simple two-page newsletter that I called The Wyman Weekly. I thought what the hell else am I gonna do with my time? I mailed it to three friends that night. I thought it was a goof - but a week later I had the urge to do it again. This was in the midst of me being unemployed for eight weeks and it was a good vehicle for me to reach out to some friends and get some writing done.

So the first one was a goof, as were the second and the third. I was just having fun and trying to amuse myself and some friends. But the folks who read my stuff usually told some more folks and the next thing you know I had a readership. I harbored thoughts of pulling the plug after a dozen issues, of moving on and being a Real Writer. But the thrill of putting stuff on paper and having people read it was too much damn fun. I remember writing some goofy stuff and using quite a few inside jokes. One of these days, I'll go back and read my first zines. Maybe I'll even put 'em on the website, once I figure a way to change all the names; because back then I named names and didn't hassle the consequences.

Your second beer arrives as the dude to your right momentarily leaves Jackie by herself. Enjoying the effects of her alcohol intake, she spins on her barstool - occasionally brushing you with her feet or hands. You cringe, trying not to laugh. It's not the fact that she is tipsy that is hilarious. No, what's so goddamn funny is that every time you go to a bar you have that not-so-secret wish that a babe would talk to and touch you. And now you cringe, hoping Jackie won't start her religion-and-culture talk ("Christians invented the word 'hypocrisy'"; "I'm a very spiritual person, I just have my own spiritual things that I do"; "Americans are soooo mean, it's just not like in Europe at all" "I never have felt like I fit into Western Society's norms...") with you. Because unlike the dude chatting her up, you probably won't fill her with what she wants to hear.

But praise the Lord, a dude parks himself to your left and starts talking hoops. You know virtually nothing about hoops, but you can bluff your way through any conversation that involves the four major (i.e. "real") sports.

I moved from The Wyman Weekly to Exiled on Main Street in Spring of '97. It was partly being tired of coming up with stuff every week for TWW and partly being influenced by my friend Elissa's zine hope. Hit-and-run commentary was a blast, but I wanted a format that was longer and took some more work to put together. At some point, I had imagined it just being a longer Weekly, but man did that perception blow up quick. The pull towards longer pieces ... the pull towards memories (as opposed to current commentary) ... the pull towards poetry (hi Paula wherever you are - hey dammit Belmont: CALL ME I still got yer Lynn Emanuel book) ... all this stuff ended up changing the writing.

Hey enough about the craft. Just boring writer stuff. Sorry. But you probably know the rest ... I wrote a bunch of stuff and put it into zines and then onto a website (thanks Jeremy) and then came up with my own website. The girls think my stuff is negative, and the guys think I'm a sellout. And my weeks seem more and more the same and my writing is more and more about Stuff That Happened A Long Time Ago instead of being about Stuff That Happened To Me Yesterday Or Last Weekend.

But I taught myself HTML and I managed to design a zine cover (#24) using just a dime, a ruler, and a image I downloaded off the Net. The correspondence still trickles in and people still read my stuff. And more often than not when someone quotes my own writing to me, I either A) have no idea they're quoting me, or B) deny what I had written. (Key phrases: "I was just kidding," "You're using it out of context," and "I was exaggerating for effect.") I write and people respond to it. I am fortunate.

You order your third beer while getting scolded by the bartender for agreeing with the guy next to you that Michael Jordan was the greatest hoops player ever. He's arguing for Oscar Robertson, and you manage to appease him by nickname-checking Robertson as "The Big O," and by name-checking the Cincinnati Royals. You wonder where in the world you picked up this knowledge. The bartender disapproves of lackadaisical young players in pro sports, so you badmouth Randy Moss. This perks up a few ears around you and glances are tossed your way, but the bartender agrees with you and the patrons keep their mouths shut because it's tough to count to forty-one when you've been drinking.

Jackie leaves with the good-looking dude who was chatting her up. They have plans to move to Mexico soon. A pretty girl enters the bar, taps you on the shoulder, and asks if Pedro has left yet. You say huh? She says oh sorry I meant Peter. You tell her you don't know who Pedro or Peter is. She apologizes and walks away into the bar.

The hoops fan to your left has left, and a new guy is sitting there. He looks kind of like George Clooney and you wonder if maybe it really is him and maybe he's researching a role where he plays a friendly barfly. He asks you where you are from and you say North Dakota. He asks you what you do and you sneak yourself a short smile before replying.

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