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Where to begin? The following lengthy essay is going to cover the past 20 years of my creative life. I feel it is a necessary, if not boring measure, that must be taken as we start off this new blog. This is primarily to indicate that I am an actual human being and not a bot or spam monster working for the NSA!
The late 90's found me in a modestly popular local band by the name of UNDECIDED. We played 100 shows and put out three CD's of original music in a few years time. Likewise, this was also my introduction into the creation of independent zines, of which I continued, sporadically, for the next 20 years (and am about to begin again as the upcoming AXIS MUNDI publication). This was a very exciting, if not typical, period that carried me into the new millennium and, ultimately, the events of September 11th, 2001, which was a game changer.
The 9/11 attacks immediately sent me down a "rabbit hole" of conspiracy upon conspiracy (many of them true) that dictated the course of the next decade in my personal life. I became very recluse and ran a few websites dedicated to the "New World Order", including nwowatcher.com (later renamed upsidebackwards.info), which ended up having 10's of millions of page views over the decade and thousands of members. During this period I also had the good fortune to conduct dozens of interviews with famous celebrities, actors, musicians, authors and other purveyors of "conspiracy" minded media. I wrote dozens of essays and short stories as well as hosted a regular podcast dedicated to these topics of interest. This routine was basically my life from 2002 - 2010 until I got completely burnt out on politics and needed a change of pace (which coincided with the break up of a 13 year relationship).
While I had been making solo music this entire time, I craved getting back into the "scene" (for what it was), so I found myself in a variety of new bands and booking music around the city of Indianapolis starting in 2008. Over the next few years I had booked hundreds of shows and open stages at dozens of venues with hundreds of local bands, musicians, rappers, and performers. It was a pain in the ass and a lot of back biting and in fighting, but looking back it was an overall enjoyable and fun experience. However, being in a bar every weekend gets old pretty fast, so I ended up getting burnt out on this too and stopped booking shows in 2012, concentrating instead on just making music. Some of the bands I was involved with from 2010 - 2016 include groups such as Ochus Bochus, Black Heart Social, Sonic Dioxide, Dj Koolaid, Forgotten Lore, Act of Confusion, and Burning Giant.
Likewise, it was in 2012 that I started my own collectables and consignment shop called AXIS MUNDI. This was a struggle and a headache for a variety of reasons, though overall a good business/learning experience. The store stayed afloat until 2016 when things just kinda fell apart both with the business, as well as with personal, music, and romantic relationships. Moving forward I became consumed with making art and from 2012 to present day, I have created 500+ pieces (which is literally taller, if stacked atop the other, to surpass the Great Pyramids of Giza!).
Which brought us to 2020 and Trump and Covid and lockdowns and the economy etc etc etc. Back in January of 2020 I had a feeling something big was about to happen so I took an old Facebook page entitled CONSPIRAPORN! out of retirement. I had originally created the page back in 2010, but never used it. Long story short, over the following 12 months, CONSPIRPORN tallied up 10,000 members with, at its height, a weekly page reach of 500,000. Apparently, FB is content with getting more and more progressively lame, and began hitting my account with restrictions and flagged posts based on the most absurd things (including joke memes). A few days ago I logged in to find that my page had been unpublished due to a 5 month old joke meme which featured Jeffery Dahmer. FB just wanted to shut me down for anything, and they really had no viable things to use against me, so they instead opted to restrict me based on posts that had been made many months prior (one which featured Adolph Hitler with a warning of not letting history repeat itself).
I'm not alone, thousands upon thousands of people are getting restrictions for ridiculous items on Facebook. I've just finally (a long time coming) had enough of the bullshit and decided it was time to get back into the narration of personal blogging, as well as finally setting up a little online shop to share/sell my art!
And here we are! I will be keeping this blog updated regularly with original articles, essays, short stories, my artwork, new music, updates on the new zine, and who knows what else. While blogging does not cater to meme culture and instant gratification, I feel that as we go deeper into the 2020's, having your own personal site, off of social media restrictions, is going to become more and more important and relevant. In the meantime, here is one of my original songs entitled IN THE BEGINNING. Enjoy and stay tuned!: soundcloud.com/user-751184186/in-the-beginning-mp3
The late 90's found me in a modestly popular local band by the name of UNDECIDED. We played 100 shows and put out three CD's of original music in a few years time. Likewise, this was also my introduction into the creation of independent zines, of which I continued, sporadically, for the next 20 years (and am about to begin again as the upcoming AXIS MUNDI publication). This was a very exciting, if not typical, period that carried me into the new millennium and, ultimately, the events of September 11th, 2001, which was a game changer.
The 9/11 attacks immediately sent me down a "rabbit hole" of conspiracy upon conspiracy (many of them true) that dictated the course of the next decade in my personal life. I became very recluse and ran a few websites dedicated to the "New World Order", including nwowatcher.com (later renamed upsidebackwards.info), which ended up having 10's of millions of page views over the decade and thousands of members. During this period I also had the good fortune to conduct dozens of interviews with famous celebrities, actors, musicians, authors and other purveyors of "conspiracy" minded media. I wrote dozens of essays and short stories as well as hosted a regular podcast dedicated to these topics of interest. This routine was basically my life from 2002 - 2010 until I got completely burnt out on politics and needed a change of pace (which coincided with the break up of a 13 year relationship).
While I had been making solo music this entire time, I craved getting back into the "scene" (for what it was), so I found myself in a variety of new bands and booking music around the city of Indianapolis starting in 2008. Over the next few years I had booked hundreds of shows and open stages at dozens of venues with hundreds of local bands, musicians, rappers, and performers. It was a pain in the ass and a lot of back biting and in fighting, but looking back it was an overall enjoyable and fun experience. However, being in a bar every weekend gets old pretty fast, so I ended up getting burnt out on this too and stopped booking shows in 2012, concentrating instead on just making music. Some of the bands I was involved with from 2010 - 2016 include groups such as Ochus Bochus, Black Heart Social, Sonic Dioxide, Dj Koolaid, Forgotten Lore, Act of Confusion, and Burning Giant.
Likewise, it was in 2012 that I started my own collectables and consignment shop called AXIS MUNDI. This was a struggle and a headache for a variety of reasons, though overall a good business/learning experience. The store stayed afloat until 2016 when things just kinda fell apart both with the business, as well as with personal, music, and romantic relationships. Moving forward I became consumed with making art and from 2012 to present day, I have created 500+ pieces (which is literally taller, if stacked atop the other, to surpass the Great Pyramids of Giza!).
Which brought us to 2020 and Trump and Covid and lockdowns and the economy etc etc etc. Back in January of 2020 I had a feeling something big was about to happen so I took an old Facebook page entitled CONSPIRAPORN! out of retirement. I had originally created the page back in 2010, but never used it. Long story short, over the following 12 months, CONSPIRPORN tallied up 10,000 members with, at its height, a weekly page reach of 500,000. Apparently, FB is content with getting more and more progressively lame, and began hitting my account with restrictions and flagged posts based on the most absurd things (including joke memes). A few days ago I logged in to find that my page had been unpublished due to a 5 month old joke meme which featured Jeffery Dahmer. FB just wanted to shut me down for anything, and they really had no viable things to use against me, so they instead opted to restrict me based on posts that had been made many months prior (one which featured Adolph Hitler with a warning of not letting history repeat itself).
I'm not alone, thousands upon thousands of people are getting restrictions for ridiculous items on Facebook. I've just finally (a long time coming) had enough of the bullshit and decided it was time to get back into the narration of personal blogging, as well as finally setting up a little online shop to share/sell my art!
And here we are! I will be keeping this blog updated regularly with original articles, essays, short stories, my artwork, new music, updates on the new zine, and who knows what else. While blogging does not cater to meme culture and instant gratification, I feel that as we go deeper into the 2020's, having your own personal site, off of social media restrictions, is going to become more and more important and relevant. In the meantime, here is one of my original songs entitled IN THE BEGINNING. Enjoy and stay tuned!: soundcloud.com/user-751184186/in-the-beginning-mp3
◾ Tags:
- art,
- blogging,
- conspiracy,
- music,
- origins,
- socialmedia,
- welcome,
- zine
