Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Zine Review: Cheer the Eff Up




Cheer The Eff Up
lots of pages / half legal / $3
by Jonas
PO Box 633
Chicago IL 60690


Jonas wrote a zine for his soon to be born child (a daughter, if Jason’s psychic mom was correct) & in the process revisits his past and present relationships with family and friends. Jonas is an observant storyteller whose expressive writing cuts to the heart of the matter. A few pages into the zine, Jonas recounts a visit to an abortion clinic with his friend Amanda. The raw terror of their encounter with protesters had my pulse racing.Writing with fierce honesty, Jonas tells his child “You need to be strong and not scared and not fall into those bullshit gender roles and rules that people around here fall into. Pink for girls, blue for guys. No way. Pick whatever color you want. Don’t starve yourself to look like the anorexic nightmares everyone else calls models.” This is advice that I wish my (adult) daughter would understand and pass on to her daughters.

Cheer The Eff Up is a chronicle of self examination & personal revelations. Many of us have taken paths from punk-ass dreamers to corporate whores. It is the nature, and bane, of this capitalist culture. But it is not the nature of adulthood or parenthood, which involves finding one’s voice and using it with integrity. Jonas has done both within this zine. So Cheer the Eff Up.


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