On alert

Jason Behrends can stop time. That’s the only way to explain how he manages the arts and culture website What to Wear During an Orange Alert, the local music site the Deli Chicago, a reading series, and his one-man publishing house, Orange Alert Press, which just celebrated its one-year anniversary with its third title.

“When you’re excited about something, it just seems to get done,” Behrends told us over the phone from his St. Charles home. “It’s fun so it doesn’t seem like it takes a lot of time.”

His modesty would be annoying if it weren’t so genuine. By day, Behrends is the director of business operations at the Elgin YMCA, a husband and the father of four young girls. And he’s only 31 (“But I look 41,” he says.) A look at the press might illuminate the motivation of the soft-spoken dynamo. OAP launched with the publication of Chicagoan Ben Tanzer’s second novel, Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine, about a set of friends and lovers in ’90s-era Manhattan. The second, Sunlight at Midnight, Darkness at Noon, was a collection of letters written between Southern poets Hosho McCreesh and Christopher Cunningham, who had never met each other. OAP’s latest book, released last month, is Jamie Iredell’s Prose. Poems. A Novel, a chapbook novel of prose poems stitched into a narrative.

As of now, the identity of the press is as difficult to articulate as Behrends’s wide-ranging artistic tastes. Morrissey is one of his favorite musicians, along with Dinosaur Jr., and his earliest literary influence was Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. What he promotes on his arts sites and what he publishes through his press is a matter of personal preference.

“Every time I talk to someone about what they do, I get a little more excited about what I’m doing,” he says. “I love being a part of the creative process.

Why he oversees all things Orange Alert is admirable, but how he does it is mind-blowing. He puts in four or five hours a day, seven days a week, doesn’t drink alcohol and uses caffeine as a life source. “It’s like a part-time job. I put in about 35–40 hours a week.”

When we remind the accountant that those hours qualify as a full-time job for most people, he concedes. This second job gained momentum right as he lost his primary job a year ago. OAP had just put out its first title, launched its series at the Whistler, and jumpstarted the Deli Chicago. Add to that a job hunt to support his family. While it gave him time to redesign the site from a blog into a sleeker, more comprehensive review and interview website, the layoff caused some growing pains with Orange Alert.

“It was a strange time,” Behrends says. “Without the structure of my normal routine, I wasn’t as focused.”

Behrends is already looking to expand outside of Chicago. OAP’s second book featured a collaboration between six artists, and Behrends hopes to happen more often: “I’m trying to branch out more—I just interviewed a guy from South Africa—to add that element of culture as well as art to Orange Alert. I’d like to do something different each time but have it all be identified as Orange Alert Press.”

It’s simple for Behrends: He wants to promote what he likes and turn people on to underrepresented artists. And what’s time when you’re doing something you love?

You can find Behrends’s What to Wear During an Orange Alert at orangealert.net, along with information on the press and reading series. The Deli Chicago can be found at chicago.thedelimagazine.com.

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