Revisiting Roots

I started Greatsociety in April of 2001 and had big plans. One of those big plans involved regular series as opposed to random rants. 

Back then, Greatsociety was called Dirty Freaks, and there were other authors involved who would each lend their unique voices to the front page.  “Rotting Corpse” is the only other author who has survived from those days.  He now runs with his real name – Lonnie Martin, filmmaker extraordinaire.

Originally, the front page was to see a small percentage of random rants, and a large percentage of ongoing series such as The Boble, Notes from the Margin, Yesterday’s Weather, Cat Diary, and others I’ve now forgotten. The random rants soon became the dominant form.  They were easy, quick, and fun.  A series needed discipline.  The drive to try and find that discipline splashed over into the random rants, though, and I introduced recurring themes and characters.  There was the multi-part time travel adventure, “Nacho Sasha and the Knights of Saint John”  and, after 9/11, I introduced Texas Billionaire Oscar bin Laden. 

A friend from Sri Lanka became the alcohol-fueled template for “James,” described as my old college buddy (though I met my Sri Lankan friend at my old high school job, not in college).  Traits from various ex girlfriends led to the creation of “Natasha.” Both featured in vaguely-connected article, acting as a sort of foil for often fictional rampages.

I dropped out of the writing habit in late 2006, and throughout 2007.  Many reasons for that.  All now, strangely, unimportant. 

With the 2008 revival of Greatsociety, I’ve not tried to place any controls on my writing.  Part of the resolution that led to more activity on the front page was to just treat it more like a blog and less like a writing journal.  For most of the life of this website, I’ve approached it with the old school zine mindset.  How I would love to slave over some Xerox piece of shit that you can buy for a dollar at the used record store…

Of course, those days are over.  And Greatsociety has seen far too much in my personal life to really be treated with anything other than vodka-addled, dismissive familiarity.  I don’t care what I post these days…

All that said, I’ve decided to introduce a few regular series.  Simply because I have the material sitting around, so there’s no point wasting it.

Sunday’s post, from my Gmail archives, was the first.  Every Sunday, until I run out of shit, I’ll be posting unfinished drafts, notes, and interesting weirdness from my overloaded Gmail account.  It’s mostly stuff from 2004-2007 that I’ll recycle, but I’ll also move into the deeper email/computer/moldy cardboard box archives, I think. 

I’ve given Tuesdays to Rotting Corpse, where he’ll recycle his Women’s Studies blog.  Just for the folks who hate to navigate off the site.  Lonnie and I have been on the same sort of creative path – me with publishing, and him with a movie – for years now, so I’ve become addicted to his blog.  It makes me think that I, too, can be successful.  Or maybe I’m just waiting for him to have a public nervous breakdown…

On Wednesdays, I’ll start reposting the Boble.  Again.  I first wrote The Boble in 1989.  And, yes, I actually did sit down and write a satirical take on the Bible, starring God BOB, Bob Jr, False Rob, and others.  I’ve never managed to print the whole thing… A few chapters showed up at 3am Magazine, I got a bit further with Dirty Freaks, I made a stab at an earlier incarnation of Great Society… Someday, I swear, I’ll post the whole damn thing.  But it’s over 300 pages, so I’ll split it up into endless unreadable posts.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue with my regular ranting updates where I threaten to stalk down the aisle of a Metro car with a machine gun.  I don’t intend for any of the above series to replace the content, or provide a crutch.  It really is all about cleaning out my Gmail, and doing something with all the archived crap on my hard drive.  Call it OCD.