Sunday, June 08, 2008

Original Gangster

Back around '97 or '98 I started my first personal webpage. There were record reviews, links to popular music sites, lame attempts at humor, and book reviews. It was called Exit 104 and it was hosted for free on angelfire.com. It lasted into 2001, but I quit adding content and now there is no trace of the website that I can find. I still have all the html and associated files. I should throw some up here when i get horribly desperate for content.

I once reviewed John Cheever's 'The Wapshot Chronicles.' I was way ahead of the game reviewing a book that had been published 40 years or so prior. I might has well reviewed something from James Joyce or Shakespeare.

I reviewed records from Blur, Boss Hog, Radiohead, and countless others. A big part of the website revolved around incorporating some of the photos I took of desolate scenes in North Dakota. Farms with dilapidated barns, dogs, crosses in the middle of a wheat field, anti-abortion billboards.

In some ways it was a blog before there were blogs, at least as much as I was familiar with the term. Fuck, I could have taken advantage of the whole blogger movement if I hadn't lacked talent, vision, or motivation. It's amazing how seemingly the simplest ideas have turned to www.gold.