Perfect Mix Tape Segue: Brutal Honest Tea

Description

Joe Biel explains four years of his life in Brutal Honest Tea, about honest communication, the opportunity costs of various choices, the room for regret in those choices, drinking iced tea, and the results of social awkwardness. It questions the various life paths and whether or not people really think their decisions through or feel pressured to do certain things.

Joe Biel is the founder of Microcosm Publishing and creator of the documentary about the DIY music scene,If It Ain't Cheap, It Ain't Punk. He is the coauthor of 13 Years of Good Luck and the author ofBipedal, By Pedal!; all volumes of the The CIA Makes Science Fiction Unexciting series and The Perfect Mix Tape Segue series; andYou Can Work Any Hundred Hours a Week You Want (In Your Underwear)!! He lives in Portland, Oregon.

" ... Joe's style is so catchy that one can't do anything but read the magazine from cover to cover." --"NeuFutur" "A personal zine about the trials and tribulations of living on couches in community punk rock houses in places like Portland. I love the small format; it reminds me a lot of Portland's Mike Daily and his series of "Spun" titles where beatnik stream of consciousness prose meets blog-like self disclosure. Standing alone, I could take or leave this zine. But if it's one in a long line of serials, sign me up for the fall season." --"Razorcake" "Joe Biel is cool. Joe Biel is a good guy. I know, I've met him. He is the brains and the driving force behind Microcosm Publishing, a super-cool DIY project that produces CDs, T-shirts, buttons, and cool zines like this one. You should support projects like these if only for the fact that it's people like Joe -- someone who can make a living off his beloved scene and do it with style -- that keep the rest of us firm in the thought that we are fighting the good fight. But on to the zine itself: Basically an essay, this zine finds me at the perfect time. Maybe it's because I know Joe and know that we are approximately the same age. Joe's thoughts seem to solidify a feeling I have had for a bit: That all of up hipsters/zinesters/scenesters/people for a better waysters over the age of 25 are dealing with the same thing. Maybe it's growing up in a community that spits you out after you come of age, or maybe it's stuggling to justify being part of something that consists largely of pre-teens and confused wanders in thier early 20s. For most people, when society tells them to grow up they do. For Joe and I the fight is the hard one. Struggling to live how we want the world to be and attempting to come up with a viable third way, we find ourselves panting uphill and being misunderstood by, well, everyone. It's comforting to me to know Joe is dealing with the same things I am. At the same time, it's disheartening to know that if Joe Biel, substantial cornerstone of (at least the Portland) DIY community can't figure it out, then how can I. In reality, both of us are trying to find answers where none exist and in the meantime will keep creating and thinking and trying to work it out. At least Joe has the balls to write it all down." --Melissa, "Friction Magazine Review"