Eli Markstrom is an old high school friend turned SF-drinking-buddy. Moreover, Eli is a master Tetris player, who has competed with some of the world’s best players in international tournaments. That’s right. Tetris. For the Nintendo. A 30-year-old game for a (nearly) 30-year-old gaming system has international tournaments. And to a micro-culture of literally dozens, it’s apparently a big deal. Over the weekend, I happened across an FB post of Eli’s, where he linked to the livestream of a World Championship of Tetris competition in Portland, Oregon that he was competing in. And I’ll say, as I watched the quarterfinals, it was pretty intense. Sadly, Eli, got knocked out in the semis. I wanted to ask Eli about Tetris, the competition, and having a hobby that is a little bit weird. So I did.
Why Tetris? A q&a with Tetris master Eli Markstrom
It’s not all urban farms: a q&a with Achille Bianchi and Michael E. Burdick about living in Detroit
A few months ago, responding to the steady stream of media reports about Detroit’s creative/hipster renaissance, I wrote a list of hyperbolic things you could say about “America’s Comeback City.” I just didn’t believe that a small cadre of twentysomethings in live/work lofts and urban farms actually constituted anything more than an anecdote. Anyways, I also included a callout to people who live in Detroit, because, never having been there, I was curious how it felt to live in inquisitive glare of GOOD Magazine and the New York Times Sunday Style Section, while also living in a shrinking, former economic juggernaut of a city. So, after posting the article, I had a nice chat with Achille Bianchi and Michael Burdick, two locals who had a lot to say about the whole thing.
So first off, who are you guys, and how did you each end up in Detroit?
Achille: I’m a journalist and photographer in the city. I’ve been down here for nine years, now. Graduated in 2003, came down here pretty much immediately after I graduated. My sister was down here studying design at the College for Creative Studies and I didn’t have much direction, so I applied for university here, and haven’t left since.
Michael: I grew up outside the city, in a suburb about twenty minutes away. Went to College for Creative Studies for illustration when I was 18 and yeah, also never really left.
So you’ve both been there for a while. I’m curious when you became aware of this media narrative that there was a surge of hip, young people moving to Detroit?
Achille: I can pinpoint that exactly. It was 2009, and actually [Michael’s] boss, Toby Barlow, broke a story about a $500 house in northern Detroit, with a couple friends of ours, Mitch and Gina, who run the Powerhouse Project. And then, kind of before then, 2003 to 2008, there was some cool stuff going on, but no one [nationally] gave a shit. But as soon as that story hit the New York Times, that’s when it all started.
Michael: And then, two years ago, Phil Cooley, the owner of Slows, got on Huffington Post person of the week, or something like that.
Achille: So, I’d say 2008-2010 was the “ruin porn” era, and the 2010 to present is the “hope porn” era.
Living in Portland: A Q&A with Portland-transplant Danish Aziz on life in America’s “2nd best city for hipsters”
Portland, Oregon, thanks to pop culture myth, reports on up-and-coming cities in national media and the TV show Portlandia, has seen it’s reputation as a “hip city” expand drastically in the last decade (Travel + Leisure declared it the 2nd best “city for hipsters” earlier this year). Now, I grew up in Eugene, Oregon, a couple hours south of Portland and when I went away to college, my folks decamped to the “big city”, so Portland feels a lot like home these days. That said, I was curious how Portland seemed to a transplant, who’d lived in other cities, and for whom the Northwest’s culture of microbrews and college football obsession wouldn’t be second nature.
Enter Danish Aziz, a San Francisco friend, internet savant and an astute cultural observer. Danish moved to Portland a year ago, so I wanted to get his impression of life in the city, in your late 20s, for a non-local. So I hit him up on his lunch hour a little while a back and we rapped about Portland living and how it compares to other cities.
So first of all, what are you doing in Portland?
When I graduated from college, my parents lived in California. Then, once I’d moved to California, they’d decided to move to Oregon. So after I had to leave my last job, my dad was sick and I wanted to be near them, and Portland was the closest city to where they lived on the coast. So basically I want to be close to them in case anything happens to my dad.
And I wanted to try a new city and Portland seemed cool.
So what was your impression of Portland before you moved there? Had you visited before?
Yeah, because that’s where’d I flown in previously to visit my parents. And my brother lived here and I had a couple friends from high school who lived here so I’ve known Portland for five years.
I think as an outsider, it seems like a west coast Minneapolis. Or a sort of townier version of San Francisco. It’s a pretty small city but it has the amenities of a larger city. It seemed very Pacific Northwest, woodsy and green and with mountains. Most of the people seemed to be white. And they’ve got public transportation and lots of places to eat and drink and a lot of good music coming through. So it seemed like a good a mid-market city. Just like their basketball team.
Adult of the day: Gaby Dunn
I’m always impressed with new adults who have multi-hyphenate careers, especially when they finds a measure of success right out the gate. A little while ago, I read a few article buy young writer/editor/comedian/internet person-of-note Gaby Dunn. If you’re unfamiliar, Gaby started a website called 100interviews.com, where she interviewed 100 different people. She went on to write a column about the internet for the NY Times magazine, and edit Thought Catolog, and does regular comedy gigs around NYC. It’s all pretty impressive stuff, so I wanted to ask her some questions about how she did it. And who would have guessed, she answered them! Fuck yeah.
First of all, you have a bunch of titles, when people ask you what you do, what do you usually tell them?
I usually stumble a bunch and then say, “Uh, a journalist and I also…do comedy…and write…stuff.”
Living in Paris: A Q&A with expat Parisian/musician Gabriel Gorman
Gabriel Gorman is a Canadian friend from college. A couple years after graduation, Gabe moved to Paris, on whim, hoping for a change and to practice his French. In the intervening years, Gabe hasn’t left, became the frontman for a independent French/English band, called DAD, (they have an album coming out on ObliqSound and a North American tour lined up for later this year), and has pretty much turned Parisian. So, a little while back, I hit Gabe up to ask him how he did it and what it was like.
So, what are you doing in Paris?
I am a musician in Paris, making bucks wherever I can, but working most days on music, writing and things of that sort. I have to make money, so I teach English. In the past, I had a café job and I tour-guided. At the moment, I’m not making enough from concerts to make ends meet, but that’s the goal in the next little while.
Millennial issues: A Q&A with journalist Anya Kamenetz
Anya Kamenetz is a writer and journalist who has spent her career looking at issues facing our generation. Her first book, Generation Debt came out in 2006 and was the first in-depth look at Millennials kilamanjaro-esque mountains of debt. And in case you didn’t know, the issue has gotten, like, super worse in the intervening years. Since then, Anya has been writing about the future of higher education, in her book DIY U, and advocating for independent institutions which don’t saddle young people with loans they’ll never be able to pay back. Her latest project is The Edupunks’ Guide, a free ebook that came out last year with support from the Gates Foundation, and is being updated now.
Generation Debt, about the staggering amount of debt young people were taking on, as well as their bleak economic prospects, was published in ’06, before the economic crisis. Since then, are young people getting any more responsible, or is it just as bleak?
Well, it was actually less about people being irresponsible and more about banks being irresponsible, as we’ve learned. In the past few years, the good news is that credit card debt has been going down and there’s a lot more awareness of the need for good financial knowledge and habits. The bad news is that student loans are worse than ever and obviously the job market for young people is a lot worse too.
How to balance a ton of shit at once: A Q&A with Jensen Karp, gallery-owner/podcaster/marketer/rap manager/adult
Jensen Karp has had a multi-hyphenate career. Jensen began his professional life as a major label hip-hop artist known as Hot Karl, during the white-rapper boom of the early aughts. He went on to ghostwrite songs for other artists, write for the WWE, open Gallery1988, a pop-culture-focused art gallery in Los Angeles, among other things. Lately, Jensen has been hosting Get Up On This on Smodcast, doing marketing projects for TV networks and just got back into the music world, signing up to manage Jamaican-Canadian, cute-but-fierce, female MC Nova Rockafeller. I’ve been following Jensen since he hosted Hype Men, the defunct hip-hop podcast he produced with sketch comedy bros, It’s the Real (If you’re into hip-hop at all, you should check out the back episodes, as it’s probably my favorite podcast of all time – it was like a hip-hop-Nerdist, for people born between 1980 and 1987). I wanted to ask Jensen about how he got go where he is, doing all sorts of awesome things at once, without completely losing his shit. So, you know, I did.
yr an adult: First off, you’ve done a lot of things in your adult career, segueing from artist to writer to ghostwriter to gallery owner to podcaster to rap manager. When you were younger, did you ever imagine you’d have such a multi-hyphenate career?
Jensen Karp: I was thinking about that today. My father was a car salesman and my mother was an advertising executive for coupon magazines. So, even though my mom would take painting lessons and had fun outside things, my parents never did a million things. I think I took that on myself based on other weird aspects of my personality that I’m in therapy for.
But I was thinking about it today and there was this guy who worked at my dad’s car dealership who was really funny. And he had a normal day job, obviously, he was a car salesman, but he would also do standup and he would do videos for the dealership and all these other things. I remember as a kid, I would think, “That guy is so funny and it seems like he has something that pays the bills normally, I feel like he should be doing 7 million other things.” And I think that was the first time I sort thought of the idea that I could be doing 7 million things.
Hot Karl came up while I was in college for film. I never wanted to ditch the film concept or stop writing. That sort of made it a necessity [to multi-task]. I felt like I had to do the Hot Karl thing, because it was offering me a lot of money and it’s an opportunity I can’t really pass up. But I don’t want to give up anything creatively, so I became a hyphen because I had to. Since then, I’ve sort of made that into a career.
How can America suck less? A Q&A with Aaron Smith, co-founder of the non-profit Young Invincibles
yr an adult doesn’t talk economic policy or political science very often. Which is dumb. Part of the reason new adults are so ambivalent about facing adulthood is because adult life in North America has gotten more difficult; There’s no jobs anywhere, Detroit has been reduced to a self-sustaining tire fire and no one has any money anymore. That’s why I was excited to interview Aaron Smith, co-founder of Young Invincibles, a DC-based non-profit that promotes policy on behalf of young people, as well as doing research, advocacy and education around young peoples’ issues. Aaron’s a Georgetown Law grad, who along with his peers, are working to make a difference for this generation. I spoke with him about what the impetus for starting the organization, what exactly are some of the obstacles facing our generation are and what the Young Invincibles are working on.
First off, if you could just give us a background about what Young Invincibles is?
We’re national, non-profit organization that works to expand opportunities for all young Americans, 18-34 years old. We work on issues ranging from the cost of higher education to youth unemployment to access to health care.
What were you doing before co-founding Young Invincibles?
I was a student at Georgetown Law School at the time, and it was that summer when the health care debate was really heating up. My friends and I basically felt like young people didn’t have enough of a voice in that process, so we started this little group and we never really anticipated it being a full-time thing. Basically, we were just running it out of the cafeteria at the school. And then it just took off.
What’s it like to live in the Yukon? A Q&A with bushman/adult Tom Witte
Tom Witte is an old Montreal friend, a Canadian, a savvy drinker and talented raconteur. When I knew Tom, he was a city guy, who knew the best Montreal microbreweries, the fastest bike routes across the city and which weird experimental electronic music shows to go to. Nowadays, Tom is a bushman, having spent the last five odd years in Dawson city (population 2000), deep in the Yukon territory. Dawson is next door to Alaska, at about 64º latitude, and a five-hour drive from the next biggest “city” (Whitehorse, pop. 20,000). I wanted to know what it’s like, spending your twenties in a town of 2000, how twentysomethings there compare to us city-folk, and just what the fuck he’s doing there.
First off, why don’t you describe Dawson City.
I think more Americans are getting to know Dawson City thanks to that TV show “Gold Rush Alaska”, though they might not realize it’s in Canada, since the show is pretty vague on that little detail. Historically, Dawson City used to be a thriving hub of gold-seekers at the close of the 19th century, booming to around 30,000 people at the height of the Klondike rush. Since then, it’s dwindled in size, frozen and thawed countless times, rotted and rebuilt and survived thanks to the continued efforts of small-time gold miners, tourism, and an active first nations community.… KEEP READING!
Rapping adulthood: a Q&A with rapper/producer K.Flay
Rapper/singer/producer/adult K.Flay has been garnering a modicum of buzz in Bay Area since graduating from Stanford, but she first really caught our ear with the release of last year’s I Stopped Caring in ’96. The project was an eclectic mix of electro-rap bangers about growing up and individuality, with a small dose of existential despair mixed in. If yr an adult were an FM-radio station in an alternate universe, this banger would have been on HEAVY rotation all last summer (also, our yearly summer jam concert festival would be called “The Big Chill”). Flay has stayed busy, releasing a new EP a few months ago, dropping remix after remix and touring religiously. Luckily, she was able to find a hot minute to answer some of our questions about growing up and making music.
yr an adult: A lot of the subject matter of a lot of your songs seems to be about growing up, (which is obviously what made you of interest to a site about facing adulthood) – why do you think your own emerging adulthood is a theme your interested in?
K.Flay: Mainly because I feel like we’re living in a time in which it’s easy not to grow up. People are incredibly preoccupied with preserving youth, both in a physical sense & a conceptual one. iI’s kind of insane when you think about it.
What am I doing wrong? An interview with Dr. Meg Jay, clinical psychologist/author of “The Defining Decade”
Nothing I’ve written about in yr an adult has freaked me out as much as a little link I posted to New York Times op-ed by Dr. Meg Jay, about how moving in with your significant other (without a marriage commitment) is a bad idea. Dr. Jay is a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Virginia, who specializes in twentysomethings and recently published “THE DEFINING DECADE WHY YOUR TWENTIES MATTER—AND HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF THEM NOW.” I wanted to ask Dr. Jay about her research and practice, but our conversation basically turned into an impromptu session for my own problems. Which was great. The book is out now.
yr an adult: What we here at yr an adult like to refer to the twenties as “New Adulthood”, and this is clearly a focus of your research and professional practice – I’m curious how and why you started to research it?
Dr. Meg Jay: I had so many twentysomething clients and twentysomething students – I taught at UC Berkeley, and had a private practice for many years – and I just realized I was seeing the same things over and over, and saying the same things over and over. I realized there was a real need, that twentysomethings were hungry for real information about this developmental moment.
What’s the deal with this ‘Summer Commune’ thing? A Q&A with writer, Joshua Heller
Joshua Heller is a writer, humorist and internet-meme-maker, based out of Southern Calfornia. Heller is currently working on his most IRL-based project yet, helping to coordinate “Summer Commune” , what is described as a “temporary, intentional community”, sort of a cross between adult life and a summer camp (Heller refrained from calling himself the “Leader” of the project, as it is, in his words, a leaderless movement.
Essentially, this summer, a bunch of “new adults” will descend upon Moscow, Idaho (pop 25,000) and live there for a while, hanging out together and having a fun, memorable summer. For the past six months, Heller has been working on Summer Commune, so I wanted to check in and see how it’s going.
First off, where did the idea for Summer Commune come from?
On a flight from Bucharest to London I was reading a Hunter S. Thompson anthology. I came across the piece where he describes running on a Freak Power ticket in Aspen. I thought it was a very optimistic approach to place, like, “Don’t just move back to San Francisco,” create the alternative kind of world that you want where you are.
I’m always striving to find a hip young creative community. I’ve lived places that are allegedly perfect, alternative neighborhoods like Bushwick or Kreuzberg, but it took a long time to find the right people to hang out with. Additionally when you live in those communities you have to deal with expensive rents and the specter of gentrification. So I figured, “what if we just found people first and then all moved to some random affordable location to create our own desirable neighborhood for the summer?”
Interview with Marley Marotta, co-founder of Spirithoods/adult
A while back, my old hometown friend Marley Marotta, and a couple of his friends started a business, on a lark, that makes furry hood-slash-scarves, called “Spirithoods.” When I, like most people I know, first heard about it, we were like, “That’s a business?” Well, apparently it is, as the brand has blown up, turning from what was essentially a side project into a full-time job. I think it’s pretty cool that they’ve invented a completely new product, albeit, a frivolous luxury product (seriously, they’re expensive). I wanted to ask Marley about what it’s like to found a booming little fashion brand and how he keeps it together, so, you know, I did. That’s how I do.
First off, in a couple of sentences could you describe what you do,
I sell furry animal hood/scarf/hats for a living. A couple years ago my three partners and I founded SpiritHoods.
Adults in Spain: a discussion with expat, Will Payne
One of the things that personally interests me about the concept of new adulthood in North America, is how it corresponds with new adulthood in other countries. Without diving too far into cliché about how the world is flat and it’s all connected, it’s fair to say that there is more of shared culture, brought about by new media, than ever before. So I wanted to start having discussions with people living in other countries, who are perceptive about new adult culture here AND there. First up is my old chum, Will Payne, a writer and new media marketing bro living the dream out in Spain.
Henry: First off, we should find out who you are and what you’re doing in Spain? Sum it up, buddy.
Will: My wife and I got married last year, and decided it was time to get out of our job ruts in the Bay Area and try something completely different. She got a job teaching English in a public high school 10 hours a week that pays our basic bills, and we both do private English lessons and other projects to be able to afford to explore. Despite a few rollercoaster moments dealing with Spanish bureaucracy and cultural clashes, it’s been a lot of fun, we aren’t broke yet, so that’s good.
Q&A with J-Zone, writer/former hip hop artist/adult
In college, J-Zone was one of my favorite hip-hop artists. He made a series of loopy, funny and inventive albums, like Pimps Don’t Pay Taxes, $ick of Bein’ Rich and To Love a Hooker, among others. The beats were weird, the songs hilariously ignorant and the personality was a strict departure from any other notable artists from the height of the backpack rap era. And it didn’t go anywhere.
A few years ago, J-Zone gave music up as his primary career, to pursue other interests, including writing and teaching. He has a new book out, Root for the Villain: Rap, Bullshit and A Celebration of Failure, where he hilariously chronicles his exploits in the world of hip-hop in the early ‘00s, why he got out of the business and his lifelong aversion to bullshit. It’s a great, funny read and can be purchased from his website, http://govillaingo.com.
After nearly a decade in the music industry, you left it behind to make a living in other ways. Did you seek out advice from other former musicians about how to make transition out of music?
I did, but I didn’t get much help [laughs]. Most musicians do this forever. Look at it this way: If 25- year-olds with Master’s degrees and PHDs can’t find 9 to 5 jobs, imagine being in your 30s or 40s with a giant gap in your job resume. Most professional musicians either never had jobs or they did like telemarketing, customer service, bar tending, or retail in short spurts to pay bills while they pursued their dream. We never saw 9 to 5 jobs as careers and places to grow – they were temporary cash. So most musicians I asked thought I was crazy for even trying to get work outside of the music biz. And the ones who made the jump didn’t want to talk about it because there’s a stigma attached to being a professional musician who gets a job. It’s like an indicator of “I wasn’t good enough to make it.” So it becomes a pride issue. I know that reality is reality and it rarely has anything to do with one’s talent or personal worth, but artists have fragile egos. So I’m still trying to find new avenues that are away from the music biz, but not traditional 9 to 5s. I didn’t last very long in the 9 to 5 jobs I took.