Ryan Zeinert

Ryan Zeinert (born ) is an American author, blogger, and raconteur. Zeinert is the creator of the long-running humor and pop culture blog The CDP. He published his first collection of essays, 65 Poor Life Decisions, in 2007, and his second, Aerating The Mashed Potatoes, in 2010. Zeinert generally writes autobiographical essays with a self-deprecating type of humor, often focusing on his childhood in rural Wisconsin, his relationships and the idiosyncrasies of daily life.
Biography
Zeinert was born in Neenah, Wisconsin and raised in Larsen, a small unincorporated town in rural Wisconsin. He is the older of two siblings. As a child, he suffered from insomnia and irrational fears, much of which he contributes to living in an isolated rural farmhouse. Zeinert would often entertain himself during these times by writing stories, one such being "Rampage in the Tower" at age 7, about a group of guests at a party getting horribly dispatched, one at a time, by the sadistic host. As an elementary school student, he was known in his class for a weekly essay entitled "The Stupid Dork," which enjoyed school-wide popularity until his teacher forced him to stop writing it.During this time, he wrote over 100 songs and poems, as well as posted essays daily on the message board for the band he was in at the time, Mediocre At Best. Many of the characters and stories that Zeinert encountered at the Larsen Cooperative became material for future essays on his blog and in his book.
In 2000, Zeinert began dating Celia Kasuboski, and the two moved to Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, in September 2004. Zeinert graduated from Madison Media Institute in 2004 with a degree in Music and Recording Technology, with a minor in business. In February 2004, he started a small blog called the Communist Dance Party as a means to communicate with his family and as an outlet for his creative writing, which had taken a backseat to college for several years.
Zeinert and Kasuboski were married on June 19, 2004. Both began working in local government jobs, with Zeinert pursuing freelance writing on the side. He spent several months doing music reviews for a short-lived Madison newszine called Coreweekly, but found this type of writing unfulfilling, deciding to put more effort into his content on the Communist Dance Party. It was not until Zeinert introduced a weekly feature called "Lost Friday" that the Communist Dance Party really began to draw a steady audience and a devoted following. In it, readers were offered theories based on the TV show Lost, as well as humorous captions to screen captures, and other original content. Due to the popularity of "Lost Friday," the Communist Dance Party was frequently mistaken for a Lost fansite, despite the majority of the content being original essays. After the finale of Lost, the CDP continued with regular updates.
Citing confusion over the name Communist Dance Party, Zeinert decided to refer to his blog by the more succinct TheCDP in 2006. With the rising popularity of the blog and the establishment of a brand name, Zeinert began offering merchandise for sale and offering more chances for reader participation, such as the CDP Nationwide Mix-Tape Exchange, where readers all over the nation are invited to participate in a mix-tape trade. Based on the success of the Mix-Tape Exchange, it has become a quarterly feature on TheCDP.
In November 2007, Zeinert released his first book of essays entitled 65 Poor Life Decisions. It is a collection of his best essays from TheCDP from 2004-2007. About the book, Zeinert stated, "I started the blog because I wanted to write books some day...I consider this book the bridge between blogger and author, and I want to move further over to the 'author' side of the equation." The title of the book comes from the recurring theme of self-depreciation in many of Zeinert's essays, and enjoyed an overwhelming amount of positive reviews and praise in the local press.
Zeinert's second book, Aerating The Mashed Potatoes, was released on November 2, 2010.
Works
Story and essay collections
*65 Poor Life Decisions (2007)
*Aerating The Mashed Potatoes (2010)

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