Rusty's Electric Dreams, The "Find the Others" Edition

Issue #005 :: The “Find the Others” Edition :: 10:29:2014

Rusty’s Electric Dreams, an inbox zine by pop culture activist Rusty Blazenhoff

Issue #005  :: The “Find the Others” Edition :: 10:29:2014

It’s my creation.

A year ago yesterday, I took a giant leap of faith by leaving my coveted position at Laughing Squid. Many times while sitting at that desk, I had hoped it would go on forever, but things change and change they did.

Some said I was crazy to leave and some still haven’t noticed I left. Others cheered me on.

Truth is, I didn’t know what was next. I just knew it was time to find out.

I have had a few false starts. Early in the year, I came close to hitching my wagon to Upworthy’s star. In late spring, I enthusiastically took a gig at CNET, only to find out that it was not the place for me. By summer, it felt as if my soul had been irreversibly crushed and that I would never find my way through the confusion, a place one of my three therapists this year had labeled, the “fertile void.”

Even up until a few weeks ago, I did not truly believe I was going to break through. My internal resistance was strong.

As I sit here hammering this out, I am ecstatic to report that I broke through. Well, let me restate that, I am breaking through. It’s an active process. It began to really happen when I filed the documents to legally change my name to “Rusty Blazenhoff,” a name I gave myself nearly 20 years ago. Around the time I filed those papers last month, it hit me, I needed to create something in the digital space that is more personal. I had an epiphany that an email from a friend is similar to the experience of getting a juicy handwritten letter, you know when snail mail was the thing.

So here we are. This is issue #5. Since last week, I’ve changed the name from The Newsletter Thingamabob by Rusty Blazenhoff to Rusty’s Electric Dreams (a nod to my favorite movie, Electric Dreams). I’m also calling it an “inbox zine” since I consider it a more creative endeavor than simply a “newsletter.” (Dare I call it digital mail art? Perhaps not yet.)

Oh ya, Blazenfluff. Let’s just call that the “stopgap” project. I haven’t quite decided what to do with it yet.

Welcome to the beginning.

I’m so glad you’re here to share this with me,

Rusty “is she real?” Blazenhoff

“Fantasy and microchips,
Shooting from the hip,
Something different”

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Events of note

[10/30, SF] City of Women music video premiere at Brick & Mortar Music Hall

[10/31, Slab City] Secret-ish event: SantaCon at Slab City, CA :: Yes, on Halloween! Santas only.

[10/30-11/2, SF] Barron Scott Levkoff presents Mr. Nobody’s Spookeasy Halloween Extravaganza and Costume Ball (this event was featured in Variety!)

[10/31, Oakland] An Extra Action Halloween with The Extra Action Marching Band, Itchy-O, Oingo Boinga & more

[11/1, SF] Bunny Pistol’s Barbary Coast Burlesque [Tickets]

[11/2, Oakland] Dia de los Muertos street fest in Fruitvale Village. Thanks, Gwen!

[11/2, SF] Dia de los Muertos Don’t miss San Francisco’s annual Day of the Dead Procession and Festival of the Altars in the Mission.

[11/4, SF] Karen Marcelo is speaking at Long Now :: [Tickets]

[11/5-11/25] To promote The Art of Asking, powerhouse songstress Amanda Palmer is embarking on a month-long book tour.

[11/8, Oakland] FIGMENT Oakland

[11/14, SF] Mimi Pond (Over Easy) will be speaking at the CCA Writers’ Studio at Noon.

[11/16, Oakland] For the ladies, a Body Positive Clothing Swap

[11/21, SF] Bawdy Storytelling: Infomaniac

[11/22, Alameda] Vintage Pinball Style: comedy, 60s dance party, vintage fashion show, and, of course, pinball at the Pacific Pinball Museum–$15

[11/28-12/24, Austin] Blue Genie Art Bazaar

[11/29, SF] The John Waters Christmas Show

[11/29, TV] The world premiere of Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever on the Lifetime Channel

[Nov/Dec dates, LA] KrampusFest 2014

[12/5-12/7, Ukiah, CA] Digital Detox Retreat at Shambhala Ranch

[12/21, Landers, CA] MOBY: Live at the Integratron

~~ Tickets ($140) have gone on sale for Camp Tipsy 2015! This wildly popular annual San Francisco Institute of Possibility event happens Monday, June 29th to Saturday, July 4th, 2015 in Stonyford, Calif. ~~

Special event in my living room

No, really. There’s going to be ANOTHER salon-type event in my living room! After last week’s super-awesome book reading with author and all-around great guy Gareth Branwyn, I decided to keep a good thing going. So, on Sunday November 23rd, my dear friend Heather Gold will host an intimate evening of stories and threaded conversation here, at my house in Alameda. What’s cool is that it will be part of the development of her next show, Everything Is Subject to Change.

She writes,

“The last few years have been some of the most difficult and transformative of my life. I simply had too much to deal with and sometimes couldn’t imagine what to say. I got pregnant. Lost a baby. My marriage ended. I moved. I moved some more. I lived on the road for over a year and a half with a small suitcase. I hit someone. My car got broken into. I became a Fellow at University of Toronto’s Sexual Diversity Studies Program and started to tell stories on CBC’s Definitely Not the Opera. I drove to the place where I’d had my happiest moment the year before: New Orleans. I gave a keynote and did stand up in Australia. I drove through a white out snowstorm in the spring in Arizona. I threw my wedding rings in the fire at Burning Man. I carried other people’s keys. I drove across the country again. I looked and looked and looked for a place to sleep and a home. I fell in love. Everything I knew about life and reality changed. So I’m writing and performing my way to a book of essays and a new show and about fluidity and resilience and loss and mourning and what is ridiculous and funny about all of it. What can we count on? Everything we know about the world around us in the west is changing quickly. Structures are falling apart. Something new is being born. Like Detroit, I’m an early adopter.”

Perfect.

Tickets are $10+.
Seating is extremely limited.
7:30 to 9 PM

Have an idea for a future Salon? Email me with your idea.

You Aren’t Like Them
“Admit it. You aren’t like them. You’re not even close. You may occasionally dress yourself up as one of them, watch the same mindless television shows as they do, maybe even eat the same fast food sometimes. But it seems that the more you try to fit in, the more you feel like an outsider, watching the ‘normal people’ as they go about their automatic existences. For every time you say club passwords like ‘Have a nice day’ and ‘Weather’s awful today, eh?’ you yearn inside to say forbidden things like ‘Tell me something that makes you cry’ or ‘What do you think deja vu is for?’ Face it, you even want to talk to that girl in the elevator. But what if that girl in the elevator (and the balding man who walks past your cubicle at work) are thinking the same thing? Who knows what you might learn from taking a chance on conversation with a stranger? Everybody carries a piece of the puzzle. Nobody comes into your life by mere coincidence. Trust your instincts. Do the unexpected. Find the others.”  —Dr. Timothy Leary
h/t Gareth Branwyn

Real things you can actually buy: nay!

photos by Rusty Blazenhoff

It’s a small world

Archie McPhee’s CEO/founder Mark Pahlow bought an armadillo picnic basket at Nevertold Casket Company in Seattle. He uses it to store tomatoes (of course!). photo by NTCC

What goes around…comes around

What’s great about this SFWeekly article that I’m featured in –penned by my dear friend and kindred spirit Benjamin Wachs— is that the newspaper I got fired from in the 1990s was, wait for it, the SFWeekly. Zing!

Psst…Benjamin’s book, A Guide to Bars and Nightlife in the Sacred City, is a great read! AND, get this, his article How to Find Spirituality in a Nightclub just hit the Washington Post.

Listen to the Paul Reubens (Pee-wee Herman!) interview on Nerdist. Because, Paul Reubens!

Real things you can actually buy: yay!

The Lick -n- Sit Tongue Chair by Martin Nash :: Thanks, Kit Cameo!

:: “Pumpkinsteins” [h/t]
:: http://www.cinagro-farms.com/
:: OK Go’s new video is epic, OF COURSE (drone-ography!)
:: http://youtu.be/u1ZB_rGFyeU

:: Dave Hax on making a flaming pumpkin
:: http://youtu.be/NFErgnaSRRY

:: Haunted paint by numbers, free [h/t]
:: https://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/zip/4732998742.html 

:: Bang Bang Tents Thanks, Kirsten!
:: http://bangbangtents.com/ 

:: Tea for two Thanks, Jemimah!
:: https://www.etsy.com/listing/106253100/teagether-set-tea-for-two-modern 

:: Ace in the Hole, a docu-film about Ace Junkyard’s Bill Kennedy
:: http://aceintheholefilm.com/

:: Beekman 1802 Mortgage Lifter pasta sauces, now at 250 Super Targets
:: http://beekman1802.com/supertarget-locations-that-carry-mortgage-lifter-sauces/
:: A Slow Web Manifesto by umair haque

:: https://medium.com/bad-words/a-slow-web-manifesto-44d1362a58f

Hey! Is this you?

My friend Luke Freiler is looking for a “B2B Inbound Marketing Coordinator” (juniorish marketing person) at his company Centercode in Laguna Hills, CA. Apply within.

Got a job?
Looking for work?

Let me know what you’ve got or what you’re looking for and I’ll include the info in a future edition.

What I need from YOU!

Your support –even for the one-time amount of $10– will help me rock this thing.If you can’t make a cash donation, would you consider asking your friends to subscrib e to this newsletter? C’mon, let’s Find the Others.

Rusty’s Electric Dreams is a weekly inbox zine by Rusty Blazenhoff. These personally curated missives are beacons signaling the global tribe of weird, wonderful and “different” people, aka “the Others.”

Subscribe now.