What I like best about Greatsociety is that consistency has never been a primary concern.\u00a0 In the early days of my readership I came for the Notes on the Margin series but quickly became absorbed by all the posts that described the spermy, freakazoid, booze-addled shadow world in which Nacho Sasha was both prophet and profiteer.
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I\u2019ll be the first to admit that I fell hard for it all, but I showed up late to the party.\u00a0 I got on the bus right as Jez was leaving, Blue was getting side-tracked by real life, and RC was newlywed.\u00a0 Nacho was up alone, trying hard to make it work, turning in amplified drunken escapades one week, musings about Hollywood apes the next, then turning hard into a poignant rant against lockstep yuppie-dom.\u00a0 About to enter into this world myself, I consulted him for advice, thinking he\u2019d get to it in 6-8 weeks after he finished with all the other fan mail I assumed he received on a daily basis.\u00a0 Instead he turned right around and graciously answered my questions about how to embark on a real life while grinding through that thing that you do to pay the rent.<\/p>\n
Eventually he encouraged me to submit my own work, and I debuted with my first attempt at a regular gig, a column from the point of view of a single guy just out of college, attempting to be just a little higher brow than something you\u2019d read on Something Awful, and an alternative to the \u201cApproaching Thirty\u201d mentality Nacho seemed to be concerned with at the time.\u00a0 Foreshadowing many such false starts, however, this column quickly ran out of steam and I started submitting as many random posts as Nacho did.\u00a0 To me, the young and eager writer, consistency seemed to be the ideal.\u00a0 Build the brand and draw in the repeat customers.\u00a0 Nacho preached this to wannabe establishment writers, but rarely did so himself.\u00a0 I eventually gave up on it, as well, and we pressed on, posting unpredictably, prose poems one week, relationship post-mortems the next.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot of magical, vital stuff in the archives, but, unfortunately, a dearth of specific tags to help you sort it.\u00a0 Ah, well, that\u2019s all right.\u00a0 It\u2019s never been about the trade paperback, only the hot ink.\u00a0 Output, content, don\u2019t let this thing die!\u00a0 And so we overanalyze 1970s television or re-imagine Woodstock or just whine about our various injuries.<\/p>\n
Maybe that is the GS brand.\u00a0 GS is that guy at the bar who is always there when you arrive and who stays after you leave, ready to catch anyone\u2019s eye and pounce on that moment to open up.\u00a0 It might be a war story, a rant about the president, Americana trivia, or even a little old-fashioned nostalgia about how \u201cyou shoulda been here back when\u2026\u201d\u00a0 You don\u2019t know what GS is gonna tell you, but you know it\u2019s always going to be there, same bar, same stool, same deadpan tone ready to mock the status quo or dare the end of the world to come before last call.<\/p>\n
Of course, you should never confuse us with the characters we represent.\u00a0 I spent my first few encounters with Nacho in person trying to live up to his persona.\u00a0 We had a few crazy nights but come daybreak we settled down into our truer selves, munching on pancakes or watching William H. Macy movies for no reason other than to float through the a.m. hours.\u00a0 We are good people, we just happen to rub elbows with the truly desperate who rarely seek to describe themselves.\u00a0 In DC, in New Orleans, up and down the eastern seaboard, and at times even across the pond we have sought madness for our own amusement but never succumbed to the temptation to join them onstage.\u00a0 We are merely the barkers, drawing attention to the sideshow.\u00a0 Characters like Brave Captain Harvey, James, and other dirty freaks are out there, and it may seem like we are true disciples to their awful gospel, but we are just the scribes.\u00a0 We are tolerant of the depraved and the tiny, tin-pan despots, but lack of condemnation should never be confused for commiseration.<\/p>\n
At a certain point, for me, it became less about the message and the writing than the people.\u00a0 I\u2019m checking in on the forums every day.\u00a0 It\u2019s how I get most of my entertainment news and where I turn for internet memes.\u00a0 If it doesn\u2019t reach me there, it\u2019s probably not worth my time.\u00a0 Beyond that, though, these are good people whose tastes I trust, and who have harbored me through difficult times.\u00a0 After Hurricane Katrina, I was lost in a daze with about three dollars to my name.\u00a0 Nacho and Blue took me in for a brief vacation from my tragedy, distracted me with humor, starlight, and overly sweet margaritas.\u00a0 When I faced a similar evacuation from Hurricane Gustav, forum favorite and all-around great guy Nubbins accepted me, my girlfriend, my cat, and our tension into his home, fed us, showered us, and Guitar Hero-ed us to relief.\u00a0 These are brief examples, but uncommon enough in this life to make a true impression. \u00a0These guys are a few of my closest brothers, helping me mature while keeping me young.<\/p>\n
Life has been messy for all of us over the past decade, writers and forum regulars both.\u00a0 What\u2019s interesting, though, is that no one is stuck where they were at the start.\u00a0 Whether it\u2019s making cross-country moves in search of a better life or ponying up and taking the chance at a brain surgery, whether it\u2019s throwing everything you\u2019ve got behind an indie horror movie or trying your lot as an Irish werewolf in Paris, or just losing your mind and melting down, we are all changed.\u00a0 Like I said, GS has never been about consistency.\u00a0 And by the time another ten years has passed, I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if a new generation has latched on just like I did, more eager mutants hungry for our worldview.\u00a0 I\u2019m looking forward to it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What I like best about Greatsociety is that consistency has never been a primary concern.\u00a0 In the early days of my readership I came for the Notes on the Margin series but quickly became absorbed by all the posts that …<\/p>\n