Am I Still Going To Make Fun of Steve Brooks?
No, no, no... Well, I mean, yes, of course, I am. (I have to be honest knowing what my next post is going to be.) But I have no real issue with Steve. Contrary to my reputation, I don't like to be cruel. I do like to shit-talk, tease, and make fun of people in this industry because I think it's something that's needed in any healthy system of any type. I'll still fuck with him and screw with his site, but I think he's had his share of tragedy and unfortunate circumstances in his life. I'm not interested in berating the guy for sport. To a certain extent he seems to have withdrawn from the Cafe some. Maybe I'm just not paying close enough attention but I don't hear as many stories of him banning people for no reason. Most of the areas of the Cafe devoted to his opinions have been dormant for years. It seems like he views the site mainly as a commercial venture now. Not a week goes by where he doesn't send out a PM alerting us to some hideous looking deck of cards. But I don't begrudge him that.
A word of advice to anyone I piss off. My old site wasn't popular because I went after people who didn't deserve it. So if you feel "attacked" for being hackish, corny, a child-molester, casually racist, or whatever, your first step should be to say to yourself, "Hmmm, what have I done that caused me to be perceived in this light, and how do I address it?" The alternative, is to come at me and tell me what a piece of shit I am. That's fine. And I think if you polled the audience of my previous blog they would tell you, "Yes, please do that!" because it was usually pretty entertaining. But it didn't work out well for those people.
So I will end this section by quoting United States Marine Corps General, James Mattis:
I come in peace. I didn't bring artillery. But I'm pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, I'll kill you all.
Why Did I Come Back?
A couple people have expressed to me in the past that starting up a new blog would be a mistake; that it's cooler to just vanish and be forever anonymous like Erdnase. That theory presupposes that Erdnase had anything else worthwhile left to say. Maybe that's why he didn't write again. Or maybe he intended to write more but just died from black lung, or the dropsy, or milk leg, or whatever people were dying of back then. So I didn't really care too much about that argument.
I came back because I've been fortunate enough to structure my life so I have the time to put into the site that I'd like. Also technological advancements have made it easier to do bigger things with the site than I could have done in the past. And I like thinking about magic, writing about magic, and talking shit about magic. And I've learned a lot about performing magic these past 10 years that, as Descartes said, it would be shameful of me to withhold.
