Catharsis – Otherwise Known As The Backstory Of My Website

Happy Monday everyone.

Since a heatwave was upon us, I did the next best thing. Stayed home, sat in front of my AC, and finally worked on my website.

*Sigh* Long story about this website. I had an ex who promised me the world and then some. I already had html knowledge under my belt, but he insisted he would produce a much better page for me. Look, he claimed – I even got webspace for you. So I waited.

Of course, his promises went up in a cloud of pot smoke. As it turned out, the webspace he claimed he got for me turned out to be under his brother’s account. An account that someone trying to establish some kind of presence with cartoons and illustration should probably have some control in regards to content, etc. On top of that, he would get annoyed whenever I would remind him of his promises. Finally he relented and designed some kind of website – using Adobe Photoshop as a platform.

Adobe Photoshop as a way to design a website? As you can guess, it didn’t come out that good. The product wasn’t even finished. As it turned out, he jumped ship to design another website for someone else – with much better results. What a slap in the face…or at least a blackeye.

In my frustration, I went ahead, called the hosting company that his brother’s account was under. Had all my files switched over to a brand new account, this time under my name. I did this all on the phone to customer service. Meanwhile, as I was on the phone, my ex cruelty taunted me, laughing at my frustration. Due to this, I lost my temper while speaking to customer service. Score one for him. Then because of life, and the confusion of the mess the website had become, the pages sat there unfinished for years.

In the middle of all this unnecessary rubble, my original .com was brought out by another company. I was in between residences. Quite frankly, I was homeless during this point because me and ex had reached a boiling point. This is a completely different story but one day I will blog about these wretched experiences. Anyway, for the spring and summer of 2007, I was homeless for a while. Crashed on my parents’ couch a bit, but mostly while I had to take care of some issues, was couch surfing between two states. Not a good time, but the experience has made me a much stronger person. In the middle of all these ‘chaos’ my .com was brought out by a porn company. I found out about this incident just weeks before I was about to show my work at a NYC indie comic con. (A table I had reserved months before all this hit the fan.) The website I had listed was about to be printed in either a program listing, or some magazine. I had to call the person doing the listing and nipped it in the bud, just in the nick of time. Luckily the person doing the listing was completely understanding.

I guess one can chuckle about it now. At the time though, it was a time when nothing seemed to be going right for me. I was extremely vulnerable, and surrounded by vultures who I thought were my friends. Parasites who claimed to wanna help me, and in fairness, some did – with a price. (Yet I did meet some genuine people during this time, and those are the ones I kept in touch with after my crisis was subsiding.) In all though, what most of these people did was take advantage of me, and the situation I was in at the time. Vulnerability is a dangerous thing indeed.

Back to the website. I’ve had people look into the site for me. A few of these peeps commented something about how messy the site was. Yeah yeah, I know I would nod back. However, I had also become hesitate to let anyone touch it. Part of my reasoning was that if anything went wrong, I didn’t want to burn bridges or lose friendships. Another was my gut instinct was telling me otherwise. Always go with your instincts. They never fail – unless you go against those same instincts. Which is what I did when I hooked up with the ex. Had I followed my gut instinct, I would’ve never hooked up with him. Thus would’ve saved me three years of trauma. Two years being with him, and another for getting my life back together. Oh, and the expensive fallout afterwards.

Let’s put it this way: as soon as I was back in NYC, and my temp holiday gig was over…I was exhausted.

So let’s hit the fast forward button to June 29th, 2012. I had an odd dream. May sound kooky to some who’s reading this entry, that is, if you even made it this far. Not getting into details, but it was enough to light a fire under my ass. I sat down in front of my lovely air conditioner, praised the Goddess of The Air Conditioner, and banged out this site.

Finally I felt a sort of victory, taming this monster of a website. It’s not as professional as I would have liked it to be, but it’s still better than staring at a black page. Doing this website was also another nail in the coffin which contains my calamitous past. In a way, it was another subconsciousness step of taking my power back.

Hopefully by reading this blog post, the reader will get some sort of idea of where I’m coming from, and why I’ve developed into the person I’m currently am. A form of catharsis.

Perhaps this quote by writer James Baldwin could explain it better: “The victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: she has become a threat.”

Here’s a link to my new ‘official’ website, as of July 2012. You can finally order copies of my self published comic through PayPal, and contact me for commissions. : www.witchesbrewpress.com. It also mirrors to www.witchesbrewpress.net.

My new ‘official’ website as of July 2012. WitchesBrewPress.com. Photo by Michele Witchipoo.

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Random Posting…

It’s been a while since I had posted a blog entry. Not by choice, mind you. Life has gotten pretty busy, so I’ve been slacking off in my blog related duties.

For some reason or another this morning, I had remembered this one kid. This was back in the 1990s, when I admittedly wasn’t doing much with my life. Many of the people I had associated with during that era were of toxic nature. People I shouldn’t have wasted my time with. My days consisted of various dead end jobs. My nights were spent wasting time hanging out around the lower Manhattan area. Did a lot of clubbing during that time. Went to a few ‘Raves’ and club parties, but was mostly lingering around small dives around the East Village/Lower East Side area. I regularly went to places like Mother and Coney Island High.

The ’90s was also when I first really gotten into tarot cards. Looking back, the tarot was my introduction to anything metaphysical. Walking around after an all night party, me and two friends were causally walking around the East Village. Somehow we started talking about Ouija boards. My friend said he had purchased one from a store called Enchantments. Since we were on East. 7th street anyway, we decided to browse inside the shop. On a lark, I brought my first ever deck of tarot cards. Going with my tastes, I chose the Art Nouveau deck. A deck which believe it or not, I still have to this day. To my surprise, I was really good with reading tarot. Started reading for friends and strangers alike. This is dating back to 1993. By the time the late 90s rolled around, I had already done professional tarot readings in clubs. It wasn’t too often. Mostly filling in for someone who couldn’t make it that night, and for a pal’s club party.

Anyway…during this time, I remember this kid who hung out at Coney Island High a lot. A short dude with a small black mohawk. Despite his attempts at networking inside Coney, reception to him was lukewarm. Me and him never truly spoke face to face. It wasn’t my choice; we just never had an opportunity to have an actual conversation. My observations were always from afar.

Over the course of the two years, I would see him hang around mostly at Coney Island High. One time he was drunk, his arm around some blond punky looking girl. My guess it was probably his girlfriend. They were living the Sid and Nancy dream, acting rowdy in the street. They were going to check out Texas Terri & The Stiff Ones around the corner at The Continental. Next time I saw him, he was flying solo again.

Why am I bringing this all up you ask. Okay, I’ll get to the point of this story.

Fast forward to either 2002 or 2003. I had long stopped crawling around downtown until the wee hours of the night. I was in a relationship that was going nowhere. Had begun involvement with someone else, also going nowhere. The early 2000s were ten years of experiencing a series of rough patches. My self esteem wasn’t that all that great. Constantly I was put down and discouraged from what I had really wanted to do. Put down for my interests at the time, etc. Meanwhile the main boyfriend was a hypocritical trust fund baby. A forty year old pothead going on seventeen. Looking back, I should’ve walked away from him a long, long time ago, but things happen for a reason. Everything is a learning experience.

Anyhow…this guy takes me to see Joan Jett and The Blackhearts in concert. Since he was the man with the van, we drove all the way to Asbury Park. We arrived at The Stone Pony, just in time to see the opening act.

The first band walks on stage. I immediately recognize one of the band members. The band member in question was the mohawk kid from back in the Coney Island High days. So in roughly seven years, this guy went from being an outcast desperately trying to fit in to the Coney club scene, to playing in a band that was opening up for the legend Joan Jett.

Don’t know whatever happened to that opening act after that night. Yet looking back at that night, that should’ve been a wake-up call. Proof that no matter how people can sometimes perceive you, you can still manage to accomplish anything. This mohawk kid didn’t care what people thought of him. Nah. He did what he set out to do, regardless. The result? He surpassed all the local band douchebags and scenesters, following his passion. He had a gig opening up for Joan Jett, one of my heroes.

As for all the people I used to hang out with back in the ’90s. Some I’m still friends with, most faded away from my life for one good reason or another. After 1999, I knew some changes had to take place in my life. After 2003 (although by accident for the most part), I set out to do what I had wanted to do. The result? While I admit I had made some poor judgement with whom I used to be associated with, executed some bad decisions, blah, blah, blah…for the most part I obtained some of my goals. I was snubbed, laughed at, rejected, slandered, sabotaged, back-stabbed…and still I managed to prove a good majority of people wrong. Still did what I had intended to do. Along the way, I changed and evolved into the person I am currently. I evolved. I learned from my mistakes. I’m still learning on a daily basis. Along the way, I also learned not to care too much about what others think. I stopped trying to constantly “fit in.” Instead, I’m living life on my own terms. Besides…how can I help others if I can’t help myself first?

Yeah, I should improve on my psycho/vampyric/liar/user radar more, but I’m getting a bit better. As I’ve said, I’m still learning on a regular basis. I’ve come a long way from the person I used to be back in the ’90s. I’ve come a long way from the person I was from back in the early 2000s. Quite possibly, I might be a completely different person in another ten years.

Which leads us to the moral of this blog entry. No matter how many times people may disregard you. No matter how many times you keep falling on your face…just get up, learn from your mistakes and try again. After all, at the end of the day, it’s your life. You only live once, so might as well make it the best way you can.

That is all.

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