Happy Fifth Birthday to Me! The Happy Place Has Officially Made It to the Half-Decade Mark!
On April 20th, 2017, roughly twenty years into my life as a professional pop culture writer, I took control of my career and with it my life.
For it was on that magical day EXACTLY five years that Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place began its ramshackle and glorious life. I had reached a weird crossroads in my life. My columns were being cancelled at a disturbing pace and I had no idea whether I’d ever publish another book.
I felt powerless before the fickleness and cruelty of pop culture media so I did something big in order to feel like I was the one determining the course of my career.
I am proud of myself. I am really, really proud of myself. Writing and running this site has been an incredible challenge but it’s also been the most creatively fulfilling experience of my life.
I’d like to thank my sister-in-law Romy Maloon for helping create the site on a technical level and keep it going. I couldn’t have done it without you! I’d also like to thank my friend and Travolta/Cage co-host Clint Worthington, whose words (in the Travolta/Cage posts) are the only ones other than mine to appear on the site. Mad props as well to Effin’ Birds for sponsoring Travolta/Cage.
The Travolta/Cage podcast has been one of the greatest pleasures of running The Happy Place. I will forever be grateful to Clint for making doing a podcast easy (relatively speaking) and fun.
Finally I’d like to thank the brilliant Felipe Sobreiro for enriching my life and books and this website with his artwork. You make me look good, literally and figuratively.
I’d like to send an extra special shout out to Yacov Freedman for allowing me to run First and Last and Fractured Mirror pieces on this site and put out the Fractured Mirror book. You are a true mensch and this site would be lesser without your kindness and support.
I’d like to thank the site’s patrons, past, current and future. Without your generosity, this site would not be possible. I’d like to thank everyone who has chosen a movie for Control Nathan Rabin 4.0, particularly the saints who paid for me to write about the complete filmographies of Sam Peckinpah, Oliver Stone, Tawny Kitaen, Rebecca Gayheart, David Bowie and Virginia Madsen as well as the complete runs of Freakazoid! And Batman Beyond.
I’d like to thank readers, commenters and folks who share this site’s articles but I’d also like to thank the extremely famous “Weird Al” Yankovic. On the site’s first day he asked if I planned to turn The Weird Accordion to Al into a book. When I said yes he very graciously volunteered to fact-check it for me.
I had no idea just how big that offer would prove, or how Al’s support and encouragement would play a central role in making an unpopular column an extremely successful book.
Finally I would like to thank my wife. I know you wish I made more money and had more, or any, economic or professional security. You did not sign on for a life of struggling and uncertainty but that, unfortunately, happens when you marry a writer. Thank you for believing in me and supporting my fragile dream. I hope someday things get a little easier.
Doubly finally I’d like to thank everyone who has bought any of my books, particularly through crowd-funding campaigns. I am beyond appreciative that I get to keep writing books for an audience so loyal they buy them months, even years, before they’re actually finished.
I’d love to be able to say that I’ll be writing a similarly self-indulgent blog post congratulating myself on the Happy Place’s longevity five years from now but I’m taking one things one day at a time and appreciating the fuck out of everything that I have. That’s how I got here and that’s how I plan to get where I need to go.
Check out the Kickstarter for The Happy Place’s next book, The Fractured Mirror: Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place’s Definitive Guide to American Movies About the Film Industry here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/weirdaccordiontoal/the-fractured-mirror?ref=project_build
The Joy of Trash, the Happy Place’s first non-"Weird Al” Yankovic-themed book is out! And it’s only 16.50, shipping, handling and taxes included, 30 bucks for two books, domestic only!
PLUS, for a limited time only, get a FREE copy of The Weird A-Coloring to Al when you buy any other book in the Happy Place store!
Buy The Joy of Trash, The Weird Accordion to Al and the The Weird Accordion to Al in both paperback and hardcover and The Weird A-Coloring to Al and The Weird A-Coloring to Al: Colored-In Special Edition signed from me personally (recommended) over at https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop
Or you can buy The Joy of Trash here and The Weird A-Coloring to Al here and The Weird Accordion to Al here
Help ensure a future for the Happy Place during an uncertain era AND get sweet merch by pledging to the site’s Patreon account at https://www.patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace We just added a bunch of new tiers and merchandise AND a second daily blog just for patrons!
Alternately you can buy The Weird Accordion to Al, signed, for just 19.50, tax and shipping included, at the https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop or for more, unsigned, from Amazon here.
I make my living exclusively through book sales and Patreon so please support independent media and one man’s dream and kick in a shekel or two!