I’ve been reading about the early years of blogging and find the evolution of it fascinating. I’ve never been a techie, so I completely missed out on the 1990s and the advent of blogging. In fact, as recently as 2005, I thought it must be the stupidest thing one could possibly do with one’s time (still a constant worry of mine.) Humble pie.

So I thought I’d try an experiment; after all, that’s how blogging began: by experimenting. I’m going to write a post in the voice of my younger self; in effect, I’m going to try and put myself in the shoes of Justin, who was only two states north of me in a different university when he began his Links in January of ’94. For the record, I was living in an off-campus apartment in Richmond, VA with a friend. I was enrolled in the VCU Art School. And I was miserable as hell.

January 27, 1994*

I stayed up all night listening to the VU’s Murder Mystery with headphones, jotting down the lyrics as best as I could. I kept having to turn one headphone down to hear Lou, and the other one to hear Doug and Mo. It’s the best song ever recorded, after Sister Ray. I should get some sleep.

Missed class today. Too groggy from my all nighter. I wish J would call me. What happened?

I can’t wait to get the fuck out of this shithole. This fucking ghosttown is piled up with corpses vampires. I HATE THE SOUTH. Take me to New York, baby. That’s where I wanna be.

Shitkickers. That’s what B was telling be about his high school. He was like the only kid in his entire town who knew who Fugazi was. He says they all drank beer and listened to Bocephus. Chased him around with a shotgun for kicks. Now he’s the beer drinker. WTF? Oh, Virginia.

Yesterday I bought a copy of Coltrane’s My Favorite Things on cd. Lester mentions it in his book. Sounds like Tom Verlaine, or vice-versa. I wish Lester were here now.

No one around here knows who the goddam Stooges are! If it was recorded before 1992 they’re not interested. But now they’re stealing my ideas, tuning down their guitars and jamming like Thurston Moore. Last year they hated Sonic Youth. Now they imitate them.

I think if I moved to NYC there’d be a ton of people with my same interests.

Ripped a t-shirt so I’d look like Richard Hell. My design teacher just stared at me like, “Whut?” Bitch. I’ll burn her classroom down.

And I did just that.

*I didn’t really write much in 1994, so this is a rather ad hoc attempt at nailing my major obsessions with hindsight. Anyway, it was a trip down memory lane.