Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 15, 2010)
O R EG O N S LE S BIAN/G AY/Bl/T RAN S/Q U E E R NEWSMAGAZINE OCTOBER IS 2010 AS G O O D AS GAY Cards On The Tabic WELLS FARGO Alisa Starr's Snark/ Cards—when you care enough to send her ver/ breasts BY AMANDA SCHURR If you’ve done a double take at the October 1 cover of Just Out—or if you’ve shared your relationship problems with a typewriter-totin’, supremely buxom gal at a Portland bar—you’ve crossed paths with Alisa Starr. The sole-propri etress behind Snarky Cards, a homegrown Hallmark operation gone deliciously askew, Starr peddles her pointed, hilarious wares in boutiques and nightspots near you. The charm of Snarky Cards— handcrafted 5-and-a-half-inch squares with droll, often darkly humorous sentiments sandwiched be tween “Dear_______ ” and “Sincerely,_______ __”— lies in getting to know their maker, who estimates that she spends 60-80 hours a week painting and chatting up customers. W ith that in mind, read on for more about Starr through a few of her most timeless zingers. “I f talking shit were a sport, you'd he a gold medalist with a Gatorade endorsement. ” Starr has been banging out the quirky quips on an old- fashioned typewriter—cur rently, her beloved “Bob”— for the last three years. Still, she says, “I’ve been selling shit since I was 17. And before that, I sold Jesus when I was in elementary school because my mom and dad were really into Jesus, and if I sold Jesus to my friends it would make them happy. I’ve always been really good at sales.” “Let's stop having sex because 1 don't like you. A nd I don’t wanna hang out with you anymore. ” Starr composed the first 30 Snarky Cards while she lived in California and realized after another “crappy sales job” that, at 27, what she really wanted to do was write, and paint water- color octopi and ladybugs and cupcakes and “rainbow balls” to accompany her witticisms. The labor-intensive cards started off with a dollar price tag and now go for a still reason able $3 each, or four for $10. “I don’t really make a profit, but it pays my bills and it’s been paying my bills since I started,” she says. “Fuck you and yourfuckingfeelings. ” Starr chalks up her career trajectory to her status as a self-professed “loud-mouthed bitch” who simply wanted to be paid for her “free shrinking” services. “I found myself at the bar giving advice to some drunk motherfucker,” she says, “and I realized people have been tell ing me secrets since I was a little girl and I’ve been giving people advice since I was 12, and they always light up and they’re always like, ‘That is so true, man. I wish I could do that, I wish I could say that. W hat did you say again? “I wish you were cooler, I was more lame. Either way I don't see this going anywhere. ” Starr’s first card (“I wish you were cooler...”) remains among her best sellers, along with the ever popular “Thank God your cock is big enough...” series, at watering holes like Muu- Muus, Kelly’s Olympian, The Bye and Bye and Gold Dust Meridian. The admitted “bar hag” spends eight hours out on her working eve nings: “I drink and say horrible things to strangers and get rent money and show off my tits and get motorboated.” She adds, “After a couple of drinks, everyone knows what they re ally want to say.” It’s not surprising, then, that Starr gets most of her ideas from what fellow bar folk have to share. “I hate you and I think your bike sucks. ” Though her cards are carried as far away as New York, Starr says Portland is ideally matched with her brand of passive-aggressive emoting: “People tell me situations in their lives, but I can write it up really well.” Starr, who moved to Stumptown from the Sil- con Valley five years ago, laughs, “If you say this shit, you’re aggressive ag gressive.” She carries a JASON BLITZ notebook with her for whenever and wherever inspiration strikes, adding that people are proud when she jots down their thoughts— and “really mad if I don’t.” “I'm sorry we broke up, but I ’m so much happier now that I'm alone!” Between 35 retail stores (Tender Loving Empire and Radish Underground, among them) and her usual bar hopping, Starr admits that her workload is starting to feel a bit much for a one-woman operation; it takes her about a half-hour to make a single card. “I t’s hard to figure out how to get it to the next step,” she says. “That’s something that I think I’ve spent the entire summer kind of wrestling with ... how to grow without imploding or exploding.” She recently branched out into snarky undies, available through her website, superalisa.com. “I love you even though you suck. ” At heart, Starr is a romantic, in her own en dearing, brutally truthful way. As a 17-year-old clerk at a Hallmark store, she noticed that “greeting cards are the last bastion of our cul ture that aren’t super honest.... The more close the things we read and the things we watch are to real life, the more we enjoy them.” On that note, Starr has plans for holiday greetings and future lines including “You better make me cum” and “Are you big enough?”— and, she says, “for the ladies who like ladies, ‘I only have five hours.’” Read Starr's blog and learn more about her S narky C ard empire at superalisa.com. With you when uouW oujr 0!*x) rtkouA- l?i Wells Fargo Mobile™ You’re free to be yourself wherever you go, and now you can do your banking from wherever you are. Transfer money betw een your accounts, find ATMs, pay bills, or use text com m ands to get your balances and check account activity. And now you can even download our custom ized mobile banking application to your iPhone, B lackberry’, TM Palm, or Android — operated sm artphone. Choose the services that best suit your needs from the menu on our mobile banking home page. Your mobile phone and our Wells Fargo Mobile service — PLACES TO WORK the perfect com bination for your 2010 for LGBT Equality active lifestyle. 100% CORPORATE EQUALITY IN D E X To learn more, visit: w ellsfargo.com /m obile Together we’ll go far 21 AH
