Canyon Crest students publish on their own terms

Ask Canyon Crest Academy seniors Max Coleman and Michael Svendsen about their zine called Lunch Meat and they will confidently respond.

“I don’t know how to tell you this,” said Svendsen, channeling the bravado of fictional anchorman Ron Burgundy. “But we’re kind of a big deal.”

The pair of big deals write, publish and distribute their own zine, which translates to the tragically unhip as a small magazine “with attitude” filled with funny stories, photos and interviews aimed at an audience of high school hipsters, skateboarders and surfers.

“I don’t get a lot of it,” admits Lori Coleman, Max’s mom.

But there are plenty who do - Lunch Meat sells by the pack to local skate and surf shops like Utility Board Shop in Carmel Valley, Fowler’s in Solana Beach and Univ in Encinitas.

They don’t make a profit, Coleman said; the ads they sell cover the costs of printing it at Pop Copy in Encinitas. What they do get out of it, they said, is an outlet to share their thoughts, photos and off-kilter sense of humor.

Content sandwich

Lunch Meat started with one copy of pasted-together content that circulated around the Canyon Crest campus.

“At least 200 people had seen one copy,” said Coleman. “I was asked so many times to see that one that we realized how big of a deal it was.”

The guys are Jacks-of-all-trades, they say, doing everything from the writing to photographs. The photographs are skateboarding action shots, friends acting silly and the occasional embarrassing old photo of their parents. They also have contributors, like a sweet shot by Austin Mitchell of Spencer Nuzzi doing a “one foot five-o” trick on a rail in Carmel Valley.

They don’t have set dates of publication and there are no deadlines. They just put out a new addition “whenever we feel like we need a new issue,” Coleman said.

The content varies from the comical - “No matter how hard you try you just can’t take a person in a pinwheel hat seriously” - to a thoughtful interview with pro-skater Chris Pastras.

A list of 10 things that are bad but feel good includes rollerblading and “hugging your dog really tight - it’s just too cute.”

In a recent issue, they took Canyon Crest students’ school photos and compared them to animals - one guy apparently is a dead-ringer for a panda.

“He thought it was amazing,” Coleman said of the panda lookalike. “We make fun of ourselves too so kids don’t get mad. You can never take Lunch Meat too seriously.”

Issues, stickers and more content are available at www.lunchmeatzine.webs.com. T-shirts are coming soon.