FANZINE

Untitled  Karsten Krejcarek, pencil on paper, 2009

First off, wanna give some love back to our last bigtime savior, Karsten Krejcarek. Not only is Krejcarek one of the best, and one of my favorite fine artist working these days, but he also was the programming magician behind our last version of the website.  Guess you can call it Fanzine 2.0.  Ernesto Gonzales was the initial programer and he did a stunning job on short notice initially, but the distance eventually proved too much (like that great Malkmus line in Jenny & the ESS Dog), for subsequent fixes.  E.G.’s kind of an XBOX addict and who can blame him?  Now I’m sure he gets off the box for the bigger clients. Otherwise, he’s a man of mystery, said mystery only to be outdone by our chief backend designer Douglas Savage, who I swear might be C.I.A. (I’m kidding right? What better cover than to say you are C.I.A.).

Savage was located in Barcelona along with Ernesto when we first launched the site at the CMYK Festival at MACBA in Barcelona. I stayed up for a week and never adjusted to the time change (was then from California) and about shit myself in my sleep after that was all over with.  Had a moment where I woke up and wasn’t breathing – not like an actual asthma attack where you are almost not breathing, but wheezing heavily – I was not breathing period and hadn’t been and couldn’t hardly start back, and my limbs were going numb. Had to drag myself up from the little yoga matt/mattress thing I was sleeping on and shake for a while till feeling came back and air came trickling back across the little hairs that filter a lung. This is not in the press package.

Savage is also an artist and a ladies man, a romantic okay? – that’s better, he can’t help it. How he juggles his time I have no idea, even though deep down I know he’s as big a nerd as I, or more so. He is dead serious with finesse when he gets paid properly, and will take the early 4 hour commute to Hamburg from Berlin without complaint.

Finally, Tim Beynart, an old high school buddy came through when I couldn’t get others.  Tim would love to play XBOX all day too now, but he’s super serious, with a new baby in the world, Tucker Belle.  He’s corporate, and that suits him just fine. Corporate needs the geniuses of a Neuromancer netherworlder to tell them where their asses are.  I’d worry about typing that last line, but he’s too invaluable. So whatever.

And that’s that. Sort of. So many people have helped with Fanzine, will have to give another day to the interns.  Emilie Jackson, now at Steling Lord, kudos, handling Dennis Cooper, et al.  Timothy Murray, your last story “The Jersey in Me” was brilliant. For now I am in Atlanta, sans intens, and it’s tough. It’s hard enough for me to write 800 words coherently without typos for a book review for someone else.

Try managing, or getting into a multitude of minds for periods of time.  And writing yourself.  How anyone does both….I wanna know.  Ha.