I became interested in Journalism in
High School working on the HHS Purple Clarion. I had always had an
interest in zines, or home made magazines, but never really had the gumption
to put one together. Anyway in December of 1997 I put up my first
online zine, or ezine. It was called ForByNot.
Here you see the original graphic from the still online second issue of ForByNot. Believe it or not this endeavor was actually less successful then The Viable Hiatus, how is that possible, you ask, I thought The Viable Hiatus set the bar for lack of success.
ForByNot never got past issue 2 which was never really finished but it's still online if you want to check it out. http://www.angelfire.com/il/slackerpress/, By the way in seven years ForByNot has had 700 hits!
Readership of ForByNot was very very low, but apparently someone read it because I recieved one, I recieved ONE, email in seven years about an article on that site. http://www.angelfire.com/il/slackerpress/games.html. Read the article its funny. It is written by a factious minister about the evils of various games, like Dungeons and Dragons. Anyway I think just about anyone reading this would see it is sarcasm and satire of the religious right and also just a different way to talk about games. Years ago someone took me serious and sent me a severe flame filled with curse words about how stupid I was and how games weren't evil. I emailed back I couldn't agree with him more.
If I get asked this question once I get asked a thousand times, so here is how the name Viable Hiatus came along. Now me and friend and co-worker Chris Beal would play this game where we would try to amaze each other with big vocabulary words. One day I was going on break or going to take a day off or something and Chris said, "So it's viable for you to take a hiatus." I was like, "Yes I'm going on a Viable Hiatus." Then I jumped up and down for awhile because I had just found the name to replace ForByNot, this was important since I blamed ForByNot's failure on it's stupid name.
Between the time of ForByNot and Viable Hiatus I was emailing a newsletter of sorts to my friends called, Art-0-Ramma where I made funny pictures or sometimes serious artistic stuff and sent it out. I wanted art to be a prime focus of my new e-zine, but not serious art. I wanted stuff that would make people laugh. So when I started work on the new e-zine the index of 20 or so art-0-ramas was the main content. I also envisioned writing about some serious things, some real news and soem fake news. I also wanted lots of people to help me with content. I started telling people about a new ezine expecting them to want to write things for it and found out that no one was really interested in it. They like seeing it but didn't want to have anything to do with making it. So I forged ahead alone.
I will be the first to admit that I haven't done much with the website as I would like, but I can say that it has had some interesting moments. Like my expose on the relationship between Brittany Spears and Aging Rocker Dennis Bryan. Perhaps some of the most sought after photos in Viable Hiatus history they showed in plain daylight the affair that Brittany was having behind Justin's back.
Now perhaps the most infamous moment in Viable Hiatus history is when I wrote about Jesus Christ being a communist. Now this comment was tucked into a story about traveling to New Harmony Indiana. And in the story I explained that he wasn't a Marxist or a Leninist, or affiliated with any political party, his ideas about sharing and equality are exactly in line with what the dictionary describes as communism with a lower case c. (1 a : a theory advocating elimination of private property b : a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed) Anyway some people didn't take kindly to me calling their lord and savior a red and so we argued about. Actually that was one of the goals I had for The Viable Hiatus, pissing someone off enough to email me. So mission accomplished.
Perhaps one of the worst moments in Viable Hiatus history was when I was, supposedly going to be sued. This has never been on the Page before, but what the hell I feel like writing about it now. I took some pictures of my friends wedding and I put them all on my webpage. One of these pictures featured the people that didn't take kindly to me calling Jesus a red, in a standard wedding picture pose. I guess I should have known better but I didn't really think much of it since I had taken pictures of almost everyone one there. Anyway I was told through some people that I should take the picture of the folks who didn't take kindly to me calling Jesus a red, down. So after a while I did. Anyway people kept telling me I was going to be sued, which I kept blowing off as a stupid joke. Then I got a letter threatening to sue. Fortunately for me I had already taken the pictures down and no legal action was necessary.
With the Viable Hiatus I was able to prove my physic powers. When President W conquered Afghanistan, which I now admit seems to be an overall positive experience, I predicted that another third world nation would be next. And guess what Iraq, your it.
Bicycling: Remembering a weird guy from SIU
Asheron's Call: The best ten dollars a month you'll ever spend
Special Feature: Anatomy of a Cavity
