THESE DAYS XXX: THE OUTRAGEOUS OPEN MIC ISSUE

on

 

half-letter vertical zine cover feat. three colours. A blue background punctuated by 'o's that emenate from the centre like audio. A prink isosceles triangle, and before that a lime green drawing suggesting the clitoral hood


Interior, first page: a masthead made to resemble the sign-up sheet at an open mic. Jay Gobuty is featured.

Guest editor, JM Francheteau

When the pandemic lockdowns began in 2020, my friend Jeff Blackman began publishing THESE DAYS, a small lit zine that aimed to keep his community of friends, family, and fellow travelers together despite our collective isolation. This past October he put out a call for a guest editor, and I pitched him on doing a tribute to the late great ~outrageous~ open mic, and its even later and greater co-founder Jay Gobuty. Jeff took a chance and said yes, and was rewarded with the incredible pain in the ass (and lower abdominals) job of folding and stapling nearly forty pages of lewd, lousy, bloodily sincere memories. I can't thank him enough for the commitment of time, money, and attention he's put into this project. [Your welcome. -JB.]

I'm extremely proud of this issue, which brings together some of Jay's scant unpublished work, and new selections by some of the open mic's regulars—plus choice heckling in the outrageous tradition, presented as marginalia. I was a creature of the open mic in Ottawa well before I had the chance to feature at outrageous a decade ago this year, but the generative anarchy that co-hosts EJ Burns and Jay Gobuty presided over changed my life—and brought people into it who I hope to hold onto forever.




Jeff ran off about 100 copies, most of which went to subscribers (via Patreon) and contributors, but there are a few available on the These Days etsy. You can also subscribe on Patreon for half the sticker price of a single issue and join the cult—not sure Jeff did the math on that one, so jump on before he figures it out. Check the link in my bio to pick up yours.


"Shyness is nice and shyness can stop you
From doing all the things in life you'd like to
So if there's something you'd like to try
If there's something you'd like to try
Ask me, I won't say 'no,' how could I?"


JB: You can buy the latest copy of These Days for $7 on Etsy... or you could subscribe via Patreon for half that price... just saying... https://www.patreon.com/c/thesedays