A boy and his keyboard. 11/20/2009
Mr. Gorbachev: Tear down this wall!
We have nothing to fear but fear itself!
I have a dream !
I AM SO HUNG OVER!
There it was. The first six syllables of the first post on my website - 11/20/1999. I had originally started the site in an effort to post, in a public forum, writing that I’d done for publications that didn’t make it to print (but I thought should have). At the time, I was writing for the Portland State University Vanguard, JAM Magazine (a local music magazine), Oregon Cycling (a local bicycling newspaper), and casually sending pieces elsewhere.
I’ve always been writing. I’ve written so much more than I’ve ever read. My writing style is best described as embracing brevity over verbosity. The short form column, the short story, the arrogant (and subsequent drop in grade) submission of a term paper with fewer pages than was required. My columns for the high school and college newspapers were often two distinct, unrelated articles placed in one space meant for, one distinct article. Aiming my writing at people with the same attention span as myself proved to be a savvy move. In hindsight, I should have written for publications aimed at people with clinically diagnosed attention spans. Like Ritalin publications. Or short stories for attention-deficit kids, which would be single sheets of paper with big type set:
THE DOG RAN AFTER THE BALL. THE END
“Read it again, Mommy… look at that shiny thing over there!”
In 1999, I hated computers, other than to get what I absolutely had to from them in order to make my life easier. Computers were, in a sense, like fat chicks to me. When a writing instructor insisted that everyone in the class get an email address, I protested like a chair at a Weight Watchers meeting. In order to pass the class and ultimately graduate after my eight year at PSU, I conceded and went down to the computer lab to get assigned my email address. You see, this is before Yahoo and Gmail were opening the doors to free email addresses and allowing child sex predators into the hearts and homes of America’s youth (or to a decoy served ala Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC). I hated the computer lab and particularly the nerds that worked there. Arrogant, condescending douche-hydrants who couldn’t get laid and therefore took comfort in making people that god forbid didn’t know what a TCP/IP setting was feel like shit.
“I need an email account.”
“Okay, your email address is: psu17190@odin.cc.pdx.edu"
“You’re fucking kidding me. Can you put the word ‘John’ or ‘Gallucci’ anywhere in there?”
“Afraid not.” The smirking asshole replied.
This was a crucial moment in the site’s history because now I (bedrudgingly) had a link to the outside world via the internet. A technology I knew absolutely nothing about. I grew frustrated with the fact that everyone was into ‘zines and the internet and websites and I had shunned this phenomenon simply because I didn’t understand it. I asked questions, read books, and bugged friends for help and knowledge. Getting content onto the internet was just not as easy as it is now. However, a year later I would have a web/email server in my own apartment. My email address would change to gooch@goochonline.com from that mess that PSU doled out to me.
Through my efforts in setting up the website and its hosting, I accidentally learned a lot about computers, servers, and the internet. This piqued an interest in the field as an occupation and now have my own little computer consulting business. I also work part time for a company that gets Portland State Students referred to when the PSU computer lab is unable to fix a computer. I get a little bit of a charge when I fix a machine that they couldn’t. I probably even have an arrogant smirk when I do.
So the website was born. I started copying and pasting old articles/columns and pasting them into html pages. Even though I’d been posting my articles and columns on the site, I had daily thoughts that I felt like posting on the front page. I moved the columns to a “columns menu” and put my daily logs, known as “Gooch: The Logs” on the front page. This was before the term “blogger” was invented. This was way back, when "blogging" was called “writing shit on a website every few days.” I didn’t have the automation of going to a website and adding a post on any computer that I happened to be near. Rather, I had to use file transfer protocol (FTP) to download the html file, edit it with notepad, and upload it back to the site. That’s right, technology and the way I managed the blog back then had all of the sexiness of a head wound. But hell, it worked.
When I started the site, having a website was actually something that was a conversation starter. I mean, I’d be at a party and someone would mention that I had a website and you’d actually get a genuine “no shit?” response. Around the turn of the millennium, a domain name cost $72.00 a year (as opposed to around $5 today) and the social networking sites that allow people to, in a much cleaner fashion, have a web presence similar to my site didn’t exist yet. Now, Facebook, Myspace, Blogger, and other sites have taken the narcissistic endeavor of creating one’s own website and made it the rule, not the exception.
The state of the site now? I don’t update it as often as I used to, focusing some efforts on Twitter which ultimately updates my Facebook status and then a sidebar on goochonline.com itself - klling multiple birds with one machete. Rather than write under the impression that the world gives a shit that I’m driving to work or that "I love my life," I often focus on writing a 140 character joke. Remember what I was saying about brevity earlier? I love the challenge of writing something and then carving it down to fit into the 140 character maximum length. A lot of my Twitter posts are exactly 140 characters (the maximum the site allows).
I think reality television has given, I don’t know, the entire fucking world the misconception that the minutia of their daily lives is wicked fucking interesting. It’s not. “I’m eating an apple” is not compelling enough to write as your Twitter/Facebook status. Seriously? I’m not the first person to say this, but you shouldn’t post a Facebook update that you wouldn’t make a special phone call to tell a friend. “I’m getting ready to mow the lawn” is not worth writing. Maybe I’m completely missing the point of Facebook. Maybe people want to read that a friend is getting ready to brush their teeth. I try to be more interesting.
So while I have sold out a bit and used the popular social networking sites, I’ve incorporated them into goochonline.com. I use blogger.com and, again, the sidebar has all of my “tweets,” so if I haven’t updated with a full blog, readers can look to the right and see my 140 character spurts of, you know, brilliance. I also have started podcasting, with recordings getting posted to the site on the day they’re recorded. You can also subscribe to the podcasts on iTunes, not that I record very often.
What does the future of Goochonline.com hold? Like a stripper on Father’s day, I have no plans. I have no desire to write for any publication. I never did really. Writing is a personal thing. I can’t imagine doing it for money. I wouldn’t want to give someone the right to tell me I suck at writing. It would be like pulling my soul out of my chest and yelling at it for a while, then shoving it back in. I can’t imagine doing any artistic endeavor for money, but have incredible envy for those that do.
Truth is, I like to make people laugh. When you grow up as a fat kid, you learn to be funny and self deprecating in an effort to distract people from making fun of you. I went to Catholic schools and we were taught to love one another. Well, fat kids didn’t seem to count on the Catholic school playground. I simply diffused the situation and made fun of myself… you know, beat them to the punch. I mean, one of the good things about being a fat kid is that your skinny friends are so much more likely to get molested than you. Otherwise, you spend your childhood trying to avoid being picked on. Come to think of it, I was being picked on by the kids that were likely pounded in the ass by a priest only hours earlier. Fuck them. How dare you take an old man’s cock in the ass and then give me shit? You can call me fat and beat me up all you want. I still won't be 10-years-old and having to sit on a rubber doughnut at church. You motherfuckers…
…I digress. A lot of people are like me. You know the guy at the bar that masks his nervousness by cracking shitty jokes? I am that guy. Today, me, as I write this… that guy. The difference is that I was given an ability to be funny. If I’m at a bar and people around me are laughing and I look like I’m having the time of my life, I’m likely having a social-anxiety-related panic attack (and therefore the worst time of my life) at the moment. It’s the hand that I was dealt: I wasn’t given chiseled features, six pack abs, or a ten inch cock. I either pass out in a fit of panic, or I crack a joke. Laughter is like xanax to me. When people are laughing, they can't criticize or give me shit. It gives me a calming (albeit misguided) sense of peace.
So, I’ll always have goochonline.com. It’s an extension of my being. I use it to channel energy (creative or just nervous) in the form of jokes, rants, thoughts of the day. I try to make it interesting in the hopes that the literate public gets some semi-daily joy at what I write. I'm not going to cure cancer, AIDS, or do anything that truly benefits the world. This site is it for me. Maybe I'll make someone laugh and they change their mind about shooting up an office building or a post office. I may have already saved countless lives.
Or not. Either way, the site will be here as long as I am. I hope you have and will continue to enjoy it.
gooch:out
Here's a link to the first page ever posted, with my "logs."
http://www.igooch.net/oldoldlogs/default.htm
Here's my favorite piece of writing that I ever produced:
http://www.igooch.net/columns/lovecolumn.htm
Here's a review I wrote about the Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
http://www.igooch.net/columns/phantommenace.htm
Here's a fake Oregonian story of my death:
http://www.pctechnw.com/goochonline/oregonianhoax.htm
Still the voice of xanax-popping underachievers. Since 1999.
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