Degrassi Digest News

Good news everyone, Ryan Gratzer drew a picture of Sassy. Let’s check it out…

Sorry that this doesn’t have anything to do with Degrassi…

-whatever

Time for some good news / bad news…although I guess all of this news is ultimately subjective.

Good news, Razorcake Magazine did a review of Nervio.
http://www.razorcake.org/site/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=14040

Bad news, the gentleman that reviewed it did not like it at all. It was a fair review, so I’m not going to bad mouth him or anything. My only REAL complaint is that he mentioned a cat named “poopers”. This doesn’t make any sense, because I don’t know any cats named poopers. Oh…he also implied in his review that I would be interested in having people send me “a couple bucks” to read an issue of Nervio. This is just totally wrong. Nervio is free, dude. He asked some questions in his review, so I guess I’ll answer them…maybe just for some closure or something.

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?”
No way, I’m totally serious.

“WHAT IN THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS PERSON?”
I’ve been told by close friends that I tend to let things build up too long before I discuss them openly with people. I have also been told that I am too hard on myself. In regards to what the hell is wrong with me “cat-wise”, absolutely nothing, buddy…

“Why would you subject someone to this?”
I dunno man, some people sort of liked that zine. I totally understand how someone wouldn’t be into it though…

“Who is it intended for?”
It’s mostly for my friends…the ones that own the cats that I talk about in the zine. I got a drawing of Cleo once, and it felt really great to see someone take the time to honour her. I guess I just figured I’d take a little time to honour the cats that I love…and maybe some of my friends would think that it was cool to see their cats in print? I have a subscription to Cat Fancy magazine, and I often enjoy reading what old ladies have to say about their cats…so I guess I figured maybe some old ladies would want to read my zine?

“Why would anyone want to read some dingbat they don’t know go on and on about cats they’ve never met?”
That’s just mean spirited name calling. You are putting me down to make yourself feel better about stuff and I won’t play ball with that.

“What service could this possibly be to anybody?”
I don’t know you at all…so please take this with a grain of salt…but no one that has TRULY experienced the sensation of “nervio” (due to cat, dog, human baby, baby cow, etc) would ask a question like that.

All things considered, I think things could have gone a lot worse.

Good news, Nervio II is done. I’ll post some pictures of it here soon…and the PDF will be available for downloading in a month or so. As always, Reading Frenzy…Needles & Pens…and Quimby’s are the places to go if you want a print copy. Email/write me if you’d like one mailed. They are 16 pages…and free.

Bad news (I guess), Nervio II is done.

Good news, I am officially official as a “tabler” at this year’s Portland Zine Symposium. This is always a completely awkward event where folks in thick glasses shuffle sideways down a long line of people that would love to tell you about their bikes. Please shuffle by if you are in the area, I have nothing to sell you.

Bad news, I have thick glasses.

I have to go pet cats now…

Earnestly,
Degrassi Digest - Editor in Chief

Hi. So ummm…I uploaded a PDF file of Degrassi Digest issue 4 to this website. It is available here. I still have tons of print copies of it available, so let me know if you are interested in getting one of those. I’m currently working really hard on finishing “Degrassi Digest issue 5″…and “Nervio II - Some dogs that I like (and some more cats too)”. I guess that’s basically it. I don’t even know who you are…so it’s hard to write something here to someone when I don’t know the context of our relationship…so I’m just going to report the facts I guess.

Thanks to everyone that has written me nice emails and letters and stuff. I really appreciate that. I’ve got some lofty goals for this zine that will hopefully come to fruition in the coming months…so yeah, that’s uhhh…something. I would share the goals, but I operate under a fairly strict “don’t talk shit, do shit” policy…that way not as many people see the string of failed ideas that I leave in my wake.

Here are two random items that I want to share before I retire to my basement for a couple months…

1) A nice lady named Julie who does a fine zine called Cardboard Cutouts sent me this photo of her lovely cat Sliz reading the Degrassi Digest. How cool is that?

2) I don’t usually like to be a dude that embeds youtube videos in his websites…but check THIS gem out…

OK, back to work. Let me know if you need anything.

Earnestly,
Degrassi Digest E in C
Petter Of - Beans
Nightly Slumber Party Partner Of - Cleo
Player Of - Pinball

Holy shit dude…HOOOOOOOOLY SHIT. Digest #4 is done. After months of shaken foundations and crippling depression, I have managed to cry another one of these zines out onto some folded paper. I’ll put the PDF of the issue up in a couple months…maybe the middle of February or something, I dunno. In the meantime, please contact me via email or real mail if you’d like me to send you a copy of this free piece of questionable quality. As always, it will be available at Reading Frenzy (who appear to have hidden their free bin underneath some displays), Needles & Pens, and Quimbys. I’m going to New York in a couple of weeks…is there some place in that city that I should leave these turds? Anyway…

The Degrassi Digest “Degrassi High” Spectacular features…
-A boring tale about a trip I took to Chicago to watch D-High with some friends.
-A big character guide thing for people to read if they get confused about what character is what and who slept with who and why anyone should care. The character guide is mostly just me talking about which character I like…and why that is so.
-An exhaustive review of every single episode of Degrassi High. I had to watch the series three times to get all of this done…and while I can’t say that it KILLED me to do so, it certainly changed the core of my being in a negative way.
-Some drawings of cats.
-A couple fun letters that I got.
-Fashion talk.

So…like I said, I’ll put it online in a little bit, but I really do think it needs to be experienced “IRL.” Send requests for mail to…

thezitremedy at gmail dot com
-OR-
Degrassi Digest
PO Box 56551
Portland, OR, 97238

If you haven’t heard from me via mail in a while, and you think that you probably should have…please don’t give up…I was busy finishing this horribly theraputic zine and I now have all the freetime in the world to get back with you properly.

2008 is going to be the year that stuff finally adds up! 2008 is the answer to the math equation of life!

Up next: Nervio II - Some Dogs That Are My Friends Too (…and More Cats)

Earnestly,
Degrassi Digest - Editor In Chief
Petter - Cleo
Smasher - Sassy

Digest reader Larry sent me this AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING book yesterday. Can you even believe how huge this book is? I don’t think there’s any kind of official record keeping being done or anything…but I think this is probably the largest and coolest cat book of all time. THANKS LARRY! Sassy agreed to pose next to the huge-ass cat book, to help give you an ideal of scale…

Sorry that this whole news section has turned into a “check out the awesome stuff that people have sent me” thing. I just don’t really have much else to report. Issue 4 of the Digest is currently weighing in at 76 pages. All the writing is done, I’m still doing layout and all that other crap. I’m thinking it’ll be done by early January of 2008. I’ve been entrenched in studying computer architecture for this huge and uncomfortable test that I have to take next Monday. I’m certainly not proud to admit that grad school has overtaken Digest as far as my priorities go, but that is the reality of my life at the moment. If anyone wants to discuss the finer points of CISC, RISC, or Concurrent Programming using I/O Multiplexing…I’m your guy.

I promise I will have a zine for you soon. It is really important to me that this happens.

Earnestly,
Degrassi Digest - Editor In Chief
Watcher - Battlestar Galactica (this show is fucking amazing…it is NOT just for nerds)

Since there are only like ten people left on earth that remember how to send mail through the US Postal service, I count myself very lucky to know TWO of them. The wonderful and talented twins of Fuzzy Lunchbox sent me a really nice package the other day. It had a cool letter, written on non-standard stationary…and a really amazing collage/painting/awesome too. I have processed the awesome through my scanner…and am placing it here for all of you to see.

After you are done seeing it…stop wasting your time on this website and go over to their website and give them all your money so that you can read their zines. Honestly, I’m not just saying this because I got a nice painting out of the deal…they are EASILY in my top three best zine makers of all time. Hilarious.

Thanks ladies.

Earnestly,
Degrassi Digest - Editor In Chief
Owner - Painting/Collage/Awesome

Hi,

A really nice lady named Caley painted a painting…and Sassy was the subject of the painting! A painting of the Sass! I have placed an online computer scan of the painting below. I think it is reminiscent of the work that Louis Wain did during the onset of his schizophrenia. I mean that as a total compliment…because that guy painted some awesome kittens, and schizophrenia is basically my second favourite mental illness (#1 is aspergers). So, please realize that I intend that to be a compliment.

Thanks a ton Caley…you honour my kittens and myself with this magnificent art.

Earnestly,

Degrassi Digest - Editor In Chief

Sick.

So…the other night I was watching Robert Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror.” And let me tell you…it is TERRIBLE. I’m not opposed to movies like this, I’ve been watching Troma Films for a long time…but this one was AWFUL. Death Proof is really great though, but that’s a whole other story. Anyway, it’s important to note that I was physically ill while watching it (due to a viral infection that I contracted from Erin of Austin Texas)…and heavily under the influence of Mother Earth’s harvest. So basically, I was on my couch and there were two cats laying on me and I didn’t have control over any tangible objects around me past what I could reach with my arms. I have fairly long arms, but at that moment…the only things that they could possibly interact with were my kittens and my cellphone. This is when the trouble began. I have a strict “no walking out” policy on movies…no matter how shitty they are. So I knew that I had to power through the rest of this turd of a movie. I adopted this policy because my sister, a video editor and film enthusiast, once said to me that she will give any film a chance because she knows that somewhere during the production of it…a person put their heart into their work. Those words stuck with me to this day. I think it is a very nice sentiment. So there I was, on a couch…with a terrible farce of a “kitchy” zombie movie in front of me…with only my cellphone for entertainment. I opened up my red and AIDs preventing phone…and in my drug induced haze, began to nervously click on menu items that until now were offlimits to my conscious, money counting mind.

A quick pause to the story though to reiterate that I don’t have TV at home. I have A TV, but the only channels that it gets are the Trinity Broadcasting Network (which is actually pretty awesome), and ION Televion (telah-vizh-ion). I walk that really thin line between being an observant follower of the unwritten rules of being a productive member of society (Rule 3C: No sitting in front of the television unless Degrassi is on!)…and being totally in love with anything that this magical box has to say with me. Essentially…I am addicted to television, and while I have been “television sober” for about a year and a half now…I sometimes have my weak moments. Sitting there on the couch, blunted to reality, and surrounded by kitten faces…I had such a moment.

So I started clicking around on this cellphone of mine and I came across this menu that says “TV”. I have heard tell that it is possible to watch TV on a cellphone, but I had no idea until this moment that MY CELLPHONE would allow me to re-enter this world of hilarious jokes and laugh tracks. Plus, not having TV or internet at home means that I am really far removed from my second true love (Degrassi). Is it possible that the Sprint Telephone Corporation would provide me the technology to stand there staring at my phone like an idiot while Canadian Teen Dramas are streamed over the ether and into my handset? I had to investigate.

The results of my investigation…

When it was all said and done, it cost me $40 to watch an hour of Degrassi The Next Generation on my fucking cellphone while I laid there on my couch…barely able to breath (asthma plus sickness plus kitten dander plus drugs)…and with a shitty zombie movie (with Bruce Willis in it) watching over me like a heckling middle school bully. I equate this whole event to the “sex acts for drugs” level of addiction. $40 is a lot of money for me…but in my moment of weakness, there was no price too high to satisfy my new episode of Degrassi jones that has been building up since I left Chicago. I’m at once proud and embarrassed. The quality of the streaming video was poor, the audio was unsynced, and I didn’t even get to see the end of that Halloween bullshit that they tried to pass off as a legit chapter of Degrassi-cana.

That is the end of this story.

Earnestly,
Degrassi Digest - Editor In Chief
Idiot

Phase I of the Degrassi Digest : Degrassi High Special is complete. In this phase, I rewatched all 28 episodes…3 at a time…and then walked upstairs to my library and wrote reviews about each one. There was so much Degrassi watching and so much writing. At one point, I fell asleep with two cats on me…so I had to rewatch part II of the HIV blood saga. That’s pretty much the most exciting thing that happened during this phase. I’m really psyched though, because phase I is always the hardest phase…and phase II (layout) is the most fun. So I feel confident enough in the progress of this issue to come back online and make the following announcement…

This is the official CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS to the Degrassi High Special edition of the Degrassi Digest. I’ve finished reviewing all the episodes…and I’ve written some other Degrassi High related stuff too…BUT…it’ll still take me at least a month to take screen captures and layout all the stuff I wrote. If you have anything that you want to say about Degrassi High, please email it to me and I will include it in the zine. I’m guessing there is probably a 5% chance that someone will actually do this…but I have to keep trying anyway.

I think this issue is going to be like…50+ pages long…it’s massive and, in my opinion, informative. I will post more information here when it becomes available.

I’m going to Austin Texas this weekend…is that place cool? If god is still up there sitting on his throne of bibles, then hopefully I will get to drink a beer with the folks of Smear Campaign. Let us pray.

Earnestly,
Degrassi Digest - Editor In Chief
Owner - Beans
Owner - Oh More »

It’s early…and my thoughts are mixed…but I will go ahead and take the initiative and call operation “Degrassi High in Chicago for the whole weekend” a success. We made it through the whole series…and let me tell you…Degrassi High is definitely the “Empire Strikes Back” of this franchise. It’s perfect. I also got to watch the season premiere of TNG (and episode 2). The season premiere was TOP NOTCH. Seriously, very good. I won’t give anything away…but it felt “right.” Toby was VERY embarrassing in this one, which is nice because I haven’t seen him doing much these days.

So, I’m going to go away now…for a long time…and make some zines. The secret to making a zine is not talking about it too much and just sitting at home making it. The second secret to making zines is putting your real tears inside of them.

I’ll be back when I have something to show you…this is a paper and staples operation, not screens and bytes. Goodbye internet.

Earnestly,
Degrassi Digest - Editor In Chief
Owner - Cleo
Owner - Sassy