The Kickstarter for my next book, The Joy of Trash: Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place’s Definitive Guide to the Very Worst of Everything ends in NINE Hours!
Most days on the internet do not particularly matter in the grand scheme of things. They’re days you grind it out and the stakes are low. If I’m lucky I’ll made twenty dollars selling a copy of The Weird Accordion to Al directly to a reader through this website or get a new patron for Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place or Travolta/Cage willing to contribute five dollars a month to keep this crazy dream of mine alive.
Not today. Today is a day of destiny. Today is a day of reckoning. Today is a day of drama because today is the thirtieth and consequently final day of the Kickstarter campaign for The Joy of Trash: Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place’s Definitive Guide to the Very Worst of Everything, the book that represents this website’s future and its present and past as well.
Only two days really matter with crowdfunding campaigns: the first day and the last. That’s when you make much, if not most, of your money. I’m pleased to say that I had an absolutely fantastic first day that let me know that the success of The Weird Accordion to Al was not a fluke, nor was it one hundred percent attributable to the public’s love of my subject, as I had feared.
The very good first day of the Kickstarter campaign was followed by a number of similarly strong days but it is of the utmost importance that I stick the landing with this baby because the stakes almost could not be higher.
I’m not gonna lie. I have taken a whole lot of Ls over the years. Websites that I’ve written for have gone out of business or changed so dramatically that I barely recognize them. I’ve had column after column cancelled, including My World of Flops. I’ve lost mentors and friends and hope. It’s been tough.
The Patreon haul for this website fell off a cliff last year and show no signs of recovering but I have found a way to monetize the site’s archives through books like The Weird Accordion to Al and The Joy of Trash.
At this point I’m fighting for survival. I need the money from the Kickstarter campaign to pay for printing books and shipping books and buying copies of my old books and cards as Kickstarter bonuses but it will also go towards the survival of this exceedingly precarious site. I’m just trying to stay in the game. It gets harder every year instead of easier.
It’s easier to be a salesman when you believe in your product. Thankfully I am a passionate evangelist for this site and its literary spin-offs. I could not have more faith in The Joy of Trash, which takes what’s already great about this website and makes it even better. And I’m over the moon about the new pieces I will be writing for The Joy of Trash. As patrons of the Happy Place and backers of The Joy of Trash are already aware, I’ve already posted the first two new pieces for The Joy of Trash on Kickstarter and Patreon.
The first is an exhaustive piece on one of my long-time obsessions, Adrien Brody’s infamous in-character introduction of Sean Paul on Saturday Night Live. It’s a moment that caused society as a whole to sit up and urgently inquire, “What the hell is wrong with that Adrien Brody guy, anyway?”
The second new article is a deep dive into the tragicomic career of Jordan Margolis, a former personal injury lawyer from my old neighborhood of West Rogers Park who wanted so badly to launch a comedy career as Excuseman, a superhero who doles out excuses instead of jokes, that he stole over a million dollars from his clients to fund his unfortunate hobby.
I learned about Margolis’ strange, utterly fascinating sideline from a reader. If you have any idea for The Joy of Trash please let me know. I am VERY receptive to suggestions.
I’m super happy with the new pieces I’ve written for the book and excited to cover fascinating boondoggles like Van Morrison’s anti-lockdown anthems, MAGA rap, the Four Seasons Total Landscaping fiasco, Quibi and Ben Shapiro’s novel True Allegiance.
I’ve got some bold stretch goals for the home stretch: if we hit 15,000 dollars I’ll cover the ENTIRE second season of Baywatch Nights, when they were all, “Fuck it, we’re The X-Files now.” If we hit 16,500 dollars I’ll write up The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer and Shasta McNasty. If we surpass 18.000 dollars I will watch and write about the Fred trilogy of accidental terror and in the unlikely event that we pass 20 grand I will get an Oscar the Grouch tattoo. For you! You’re already making me suffer emotionally. Why not add some physical pain to the equation?
If you back The Joy of Trash on Kickstarter or become a Happy Place patron you get to read these pieces before anyone else does, in their original form.
Y’all are my army. I need you today more than ever.
Pre-order The Joy of Trash: Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place’s Definitive Guide to the Very Worst of Everything here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/weirdaccordiontoal/the-joy-of-trash?ref=project_build
