Heya. After a hiatus of about a decade, we’re back on the air.
A brief history of Madmann.com:
I bought the domain as a Christmas present to myself in 2001. I really had no idea what to do with it, so I just made it a portfolio site showcasing my graphic design work (including some VERY early Photoshop work).
It remained that way for awhile, then I modified it to allow me to accept contract work online. It filled in the gaps in my day job’s paycheck.
When I became the Product Development & Design guy at Excel Photo, it sucked so much creativity out of me that I wanted no side work. I let the site atrophy.
I had a “widowmaker” heart attack (and died) in 2010. Only 12% of people of people survive them, I was lucky.
About the same time, I got heavy into Cracked.com’s Photoshop contests. I made a lot of good friends. I won a little money.
About that time, a contributor by the handle DocGirlfriend died suddenly. Her boyfriend was one of the crew, I don’t remember who. We were all in mourning and wanting to do something in tribute to her. I mentioned that I had a dead site I was reworking that already had a forum set up. We camped out in there while I built the rest of the site around it.
It became a backstage clubhouse for Cracked artists. We had our own contests, articles, whatnot. It was a fun time with a lot of creative people. At one point, there was a very real chance that we would buy legendary site Worth1K.com, but that ended up falling through.
And once again, I found myself spread too thin. So I made the unclassy (dick) move of just disappearing from my own site. I regret how I handled that to this day. When hackers riddled the place with viruses, I just pulled everything down. And it’s been that way for almost a decade.
And now? I’m just going to use it as a simple blog. I don’t expect or intend an audience while I’m writing it.
I have Stage IV cancer. They give me about a year. But maybe after I die, my son can collect all of these so one day if my grandsons or someone wonders what went through my head, knowing I have one foot out the door. I have some thoughts.
And since that’s pretty bummer-like, I thought I’d include a good song with every blog post, starting with the one I named the blog after, “Just A Song Before I Go” by Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Good story about this song: Graham Nash wrote this song to win a $500 bet with his dealer. The dealer knew he had less than an hour to get to the airport and bet him “you can’t write a decent song before you go”.
It reached #7 on Billboard.