Return of the Mack

Guess who’s back? Back again. Fred the Online Journal’s back. Tell a friend.
No really, do tell a friend.
Several friends in fact. As many of you apparently have been doing. Because Fred here is getting so many readers he needed a new home. Thus this new site with the text in a very narrow column that makes my unnecessarily long entries seem even more unnecessarily long than before. (Editing positions still available!) On the bright side though, it allows me to post all my articles on one page and with the archives over there on the right hand side, makes accessing old columns much more user friendly. And there’s now a feature that allows you to email articles to your friends. Plus I now have a web address that is actually easy to remember and give out to people, unlike before when I would have to tell people interested in reading it, “well join facebook and go to my profile”. So hopefully everyone likes the new changes. Because you drove me to them. Yes you.

To explain how, let me take you back in time a bit. To August 2, 2004.

The birth of Fred.

At that time I had never written anything in my life that was to be shown to anyone other than myself that wasn’t for school. (Other than a few birthday and holiday cards). I had tried to keep a journal for a while to write about all my tortured thoughts and bad poetry but it would always quickly dissolve into things like “Scarlet Johansson is the new Natalie Portman” or “how does one choose clown in central park with good parenting messages as a career?” And I would spend way more time writing about things like this than about boring stuff like my own life. Sometime junior year after much prodding to write more by the one and only Chris Maddox, I tried my hand at writing some Chuck Klosterman-inspired short articles- one of which became “I am the Egghead”, another of which got broken down and used in “Facebook.com and the Nature of the Universe”, and two more- “The Dumbing Down of America” and “Why Me No Read”- that might get published on Fred in edited versions at some point in the future. It felt good to write, but I had no idea what to do with it. So I just sat with it on my hard drive for several months. Then summer hit and I started working in the admissions office at Marymount beginning in July. While being trapped in a small room for 7 hours a day doing work that a trained chimp could do just as effectively, my mind often wandered. And the place it usually wandered to was the radio, which was permanently tuned to either Hot 97 or Z100. And in order to keep myself sane during the 100th daily airing of “Lean Back” or “Confessions” I would start to silently mock them in my head. These silent mockings soon turned into full-fledged thoughts and I would write them down on scraps of paper around the office. But I needed desperately to purge these thoughts from my system or else I might die from excessive radio exposure syndrome. But how? Well for years I had admired and enjoyed reading the online journals of Nick Jones, Caroline McGraw and Sara Oldknow, and each of them had shown how online journals didn’t have to be whiny self-indulgent ramblings about your relationship troubles, but instead could be humorous well-written ways to purge whatever is on your mind from your system. And sadly what was (and is) on my mind were thoughts about the songs on Z100 and Hot 97. So inspired by those previously mentioned online journals, and also by Bill Simmons, a blogger of sorts on ESPN.com who I was, and still am, obsessed with, I decided to start Fred the Online Journal. And so those scraps of paper became “Thoughts Had While Listening to the Radio Parts 1 and 2” and then there was no turning back. Only thing was I never expected anyone to actually read it. I only VERY hesitantly posted the link to it in my AIM profile and then later in my facebook profile, but I never made any verbal mention of it to anyone. I started it simply for myself but I realized that my thoughts were no good if I didn’t put them somewhere where someone might conceivably be able to share in them. And just that possibility was enough to feel purged of them. (Wow I’m really starting to sound bulimic here). Anyway, by word of mouth though Fred grew out of control. It started slowly at first, but then after I mentioned Katie Woodruff in “Fred the Online Journal Recommends” the floodgates opened up. And so now this thing has gotten WAY out of hand. But in a good way I guess. So on Fred’s one-year anniversary I just wanted to say thanks to all the people who have helped this grow into what it is. Whatever that may be.

And so without further adieu, props and thanks go to: The aforementioned online journal trailblazers for their inspiration (and also their support). To Kristen Dreger and Katie Woodruff for spreading the word. If I had a budget I would pay you your proper publicist fees. To Lauren Morelli and Brandon Vukovick for their ridiculously long emails about their appreciation of Fred. They are suitable for framing. To everyone who has ever left a comment in the “comment” section, but most especially to Natalie Orozco for using the comment section to do a little writing and “opinionating” of her own. Gold star for her. But really all of you “commenters” have made my day. To Will, and especially Carlyn, for being the only people other than myself to actually directly contribute to the writing of an article. To Ms. Maddox for pushing me to write in the first place. None of this would be here without her support. And last, but certainly not least, to the girls of the apartment formerly known as 3Dub for their amazing level of support. Of course this is only a very brief list of all those who should be thanked but there’s no way I could possibly thank by name everyone who has been supportive of me in the past year. But don’t worry, I remember and appreciate every person who has ever offered me a kind word of support and I do truly thank you for it.

And so with that out of the way, let’s move on to other more pressing things. Like the future. I never intended for this thing to spread outside my immediate circle of friends, but now that it already has I’ve decided I might as well try and spread it as far as possible since many of you seem intent on doing that for me whether I like it or not. So instead of fighting it I figured Id get on board with your visions for old Fred here. And that’s why I got this new site- so it would be easier to promote and easier to access old articles for newer readers. And that’s where you come in. The recruitment of newer readers. This online journal, which has now become way more popular than I am, has been spread amongst you entirely by word of mouth. So keep up the good work. If you enjoy what you read, tell all your friends and have them tell their friends. If you hate what you read then only tell your friends you don’t like. And in return I plan on focusing less on Marymount specific things and more on universal type stuff so that your friends friends will “get it”.

(And yes, musings about Europe are coming very soon so hold your horses. If you have any horses. Which actually would be kind of strange. You holding them I mean. Because you know they’re heavy and stuff. Plus they poop a lot.)

Don’t worry though, I’m not selling out to the man or anything. But if some friends of the man, you know maybe like his first cousin or something, would like to talk to me, I wouldn’t be opposed to it. (Also if anyone knows anything about web design or knows someone who knows something about web design we should talk. I don’t have any money to offer at the moment but I will one day have a first-born child.) And, as it seems that I now have enough readers to maybe attempt this, Id like to start answering reader mail. Call me a dork (Person 1:“dork”) but it always has been a dream of mine to answer reader mail. So send me any questions or comments- serious, humorous, or other- via email and when I get enough ones worth responding to Ill respond to them in print. But please try to keep the marriage proposals to 50 words or less otherwise I won’t be able to get through all of them. Thanks.
Also, please attach a photo.

So anyway I deeply apologize for getting so personal and self-indulgent here. I can promise you it wont happen again. But I wanted for the one-year anniversary to give you the story of the birth of Fred and to give a heartfelt thanks to those to whom it was due. Meaning all of you. Plus I thought it might help me shed some unnecessary readers by making me seem even more pompous and self-involved than usual. Of course I realize that you don’t care about any of this, but then I also realize that you can bite me.

I taste good.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled humorous detachment and passionate earnestness.

This never happened.


Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.)Bloc Party - "This Modern Love"
2.)Bloc Party - "Silent Alarm" (album)
3.)MoMa
3 & 1/2.)Rilo Kiley - "Execution of All Things" (album)

Thought of the Week:
All my college life Ive been waiting for the day I turned 23 so that I could use the away message "Im 23 now but will I live to see 24? Yo, the way things are goin I dunno." But now that I finally have turned 23 I have to pay own electric bill and so I dont keep my computer turned on when Im away from it for any extended period of time, meaning I no longer have any need for away messages. Im very upset about this. Just thought I should mention it.