I’ve always said I write because I am a writer. It’s as natural for me as breathing. I use this as an excuse to explain the site, but that’s not it at all. Sure, you could say I lied about it, but it’s better than going into the real excuse…which I’m detailing here.

I deeply feel some sort of debt to my influences, which is my reason for expounding on the reason.

Get to the point already.

Sites like these are called E/N sites. E/N = Everything/Nothing. They’re kinda like Seinfeld, I guess, which was supposedly about nothing. There’s really no point to them, except that it lets us get our views and points out to the world. We don’t do this for money, really. We do it because we enjoy doing it.

But for me, it all started with a white rapper named Snow.

And, quite possibly, Snow saved my sanity.

Remember Snow, the white guy from Toronto who wanted to be a reggae guy from THE GHETTO or something? I’m not sure what the ghetto from Canada is like, but I’m willing to bet it involves dealing with angry white guys pissed about Canadian hockey teams. Snow had an album out back in the early ‘90s with one hit – Informer. You all know the song.

Informer, you no say Daddy me Snow me I’ll go blame
A licky boom boom down.

Yes, I know none of you know what the HELL that means and neither do I. But I never really knew what the hell the guy was saying in the first place. I’d always meant to check out the lyrics to figure out what the hell he was saying that damn song because as a sophomore in high school, I was never able to figure it out.

So, one Friday evening, with this awesome research tool now called the Internet at my fingertips, I figured I’d go check it out. With Google search engine engaged, I searched and found a story on Snow at www.whatever-dude.com. Better yet, I found the lyrics to the song.

Best of all, I found a great site worth reading.

I laughed my ever-lovin’ ass off at the story. B, who is no longer a writer at WD, wrote the story, I believe. A little more research at the site showed me these were a group of guys and girls who wrote every once in a while just to write. There really wasn’t any point to the articles posted except that most of them were thoughtfully written and funny as hell.

There’s more to the story, though. See, I was very depressed back then…and no, not in an "I need drugs" sort of way…and not in any sort of clinically-diagnosed way either. I was just simply depressed. Work suffered, my social life suffered…just about everything suffered. I’m sure most of you know what I mean. I can say the word "depression" to a group of people and everyone will instantly know what I’m talking about because everyone’s been through it. The guy or girl dumps or leaves you. The parent dies. You lose your job. You lose your friend. Dee Dee Ramone dies. Joe Strummer dies. There’s a myriad of reasons for being depressed without having to go through a clinical diagnosis…and perhaps, no diagnosis is necessary. No doctor will ever be able to confirm the depth of your depression…probably because you are the only one who will ever know the depth and sheer abyss of it. Back at the time I found WD, I was wallowing in the midst of it for reasons I don’t care to get into right now.

I didn’t like it much, as most people don’t, except for the goth freaks who think it’s cool to dress up in solid black, complaining about how the world has dealt them such a dour hand, shunning all things "worldly," and all the while, playing dress up with lots of stupid makeup and clothes they weren’t able to fit into when they were five years old, much less 20 years old. No sir, I didn’t like it at all.

         
Associating with people like this really doesn't make me think too highly of goth people.  I don't ever think I could say ROF WTF OMG SHE IZ SO HOTT!!~1  In fact, I do believe I would haul ass in the quickest manner possible...not because I am scared, but because I do not want them to smell me and think I'm their next snack.  Believe it or not, I got these pictures from a "big beautiful goth" site. 

WD opened up a world for me, believe it or not. I couldn’t get enough of the stuff. I printed out their articles and read everything I could. During my smoke breaks at work, I stopped talking to my fellow smokers and started reading the WD columns. And, as only smokers know best, smoking is only enjoyable at work if there are other smokers around to suffer socialize with. I guess I became an addict of sorts. I could definitely do without WD, but I just wanted to read what they had to say. If anything, I love decently written stuff about subject in which I’m interested.

See, these articles kept me from actually thinking about things. They soothed what I wasn’t ready to deal with. A slick form of poison, to be sure, but nonetheless soothing, as most social poisons are.

And the WD articles ran out. I’d went through the archives in about a week’s time. I constantly hit the refresh button on my browser, hoping there would be another story up soon. No dice. It seemed like forever for the next column to come up.

And then I noticed the links to the side of WD’s site. Seanbaby was there. "Hmph," I thought. I’ll check out some of these other sites.

Seanbaby proved to be hilarious. They were my new WD and I ate up Seanbaby’s columns. I realized, hey, these links rock your face off. Nothing Sacred, Jason Rivera and We Ain’t Cool came next. I read all their current stuff, all their archives, everything.

It kept me from thinking about how pissed off I was and how I absolutely hated everything in the whole fucking world. I put up a good front, too. I socialized, got out of the house, did stuff. It was social enough for a guy like me. I’m generally antisocial.

I think reading Jason Rivera’s stuff so much and laughing so hard at it gave me an idea – that despite the fact that I don’t know anything about HTML programming, I could write this stuff too. In fact, I knew I could. All I had to do was come up with something to write about.

I did too. One of the more introspective sites I’d checked out, www.crunchable.net, seemed like a place that would be good for me to post. I drafted something up about how much I hate low-rise pants on people who shouldn’t be wearing them (which can still be found here) and sent it in to the site. Much to my surprise, he liked it and ran the column a couple of weeks later. Success! Someone actually liked what I had to say and found it worthy (or was just sympathetic enough to me) to actually run what I wrote. And Chris, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry I haven’t submitted anything in a really long time. I’m sure you’re used to it.

Thanksgiving weekend, 2002: I decided to make my own site. The local "alternative" radio station was playing a weekend worth of ‘90s alternative songs and I spent a lot of time in a chat room talking about those old songs I loved so much with two friends of mine, Dave and Danny, and talking about the memories they brought back. They seemed like two decent writers, relatively knowledgeable about "things," and I’d been friends with one of them for a couple of years. I talked about making a site and what I wanted to do on it. They liked the idea, I guess, because both of them agreed to collaborate with me. The thing is, neither of them knew anything about HTML either. I found a way around it and, armed with a great story I wrote about hanging out with a friend of mine in Kansas City, my site was up and running.

Dave dropped out. He had propriety concerns about the site, which I didn’t blame him for having. Hell, even I had the same concerns, despite my research. He never submitted anything, which was disappointing. I’d thought of the site as "our" creation instead of just mine. The other guy, while his name remained on the roster, never submitted anything either, which was as disappointing as Dave dropping off. Effectively, I was the writer for the site. I don’t mean this as a guilt trip to either of them because they both have their reasons and priorities…I’m just stating facts. I eventually found someone who WOULD write for the site. He and I both wrote a few things. I later shut the site down for a couple of different reasons for reasons only those who are close to me know about.

All of these sites…everything they wrote about…they all had one common thread for me. They helped save me. They influenced me and told me that I could write this stuff too…and for some goddamn reason I can’t put my finger on, they helped save my sanity and kept me from absolutely cracking up. I don’t think anyone will really understand that, just as I don’t really understand it myself.

Goddamn, if I went down the list, it’d go forever.

Jason Rivera. WD. Nothing Sacred. Angry German. Perverted Justice. Crunchable. Huffin and Puffin. Seanbaby.

So if you want to know why I write, I write because of those guys. I owe an extreme debt of gratitude to them, if only because a debt is owed for simply being there when no one else was.

I’ve never really told anyone this before and it’s difficult for me to talk about something I don’t understand very well…but the fact is, these sites and people were there for me. I have come to see these people who write almost as family. It’s very difficult to explain to my loving and understanding girlfriend why I spend four hours working on something that very few know about and even fewer will read.

I just want to give the same thing I was given.

So, I’ve started up this new thing with all the vigor and enthusiasm I had with the last site. I’m hoping to be a bit more introspective this time around and not look so damn negative all the time.

You’ll never find me saying seriously that I have much writing talent. I know grammar, structure and what a well-written sentence is, but that’s not writing – that’s syntax. What I lack in talent, I try to make up for in enthusiasm and that’s all. Sometimes, I write something and I feel very good about it. Sometimes, I just post just to get the damn thing posted so you guys will have something new to read. I know when something is good enough to read because I feel like it’s complete. I post it regardless. And I like the fact that you people read what I write. I don’t think I could ever find the words to show my appreciation that you’ve read what I write, regardless if you like it or not. I don’t care if you like it. I care that you read it…reading it is good enough for me. Nothing pisses me off more about the site than someone telling me they read it, and when I ask what they thought about a specific part of the story, they have no idea what I’m talking about. Maybe I shouldn’t get pissed off, but I do anyway.

But at least I’m trying to do something with my writing. Maybe I am helping out someone. I don’t know if I am and I don’t care if I am.

Sometimes, I feel like Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction where he’s talking to the Bonnie and Clyde duo. "You are the weak and I am the tyranny of evil men. But I’m trying real hard to be the shepherd." I feel like that a lot of times when I’m writing for the site. I feel like tyranny and that I am evil.

But, like Jackson, I am trying real hard to be the shepherd.

I just hope you’ll bear with me through it.