Today marks one year since I decided to take the name Underworld Amusements seriously for my current projects, though the name has been used in an informal fashion for a few years.

I chose July 6th as a ceremonial date because it’s my own birthday, and UA is my personal project. Though I have a few collaborators for each item, it’s just me steering the tiny ship. Speaking frankly, I knew I’d also be able to remember it that way as well.

To get to the point of Underworld Amusements has been a journey much longer than one or even three years, though, as it fits into a pattern I’ve exhibited since I was very young – do things my damn self.

Long before I knew what a “zine” was, when I was around 14 a pal of mine and I published a saddle-stiched, dot-matrix printed one-off called “The Dead Rat Society”. I don’t remember what was in it. Around that time I was running a WWIV BBS.

A few years after DRS and a subsequent “zine” called “The Modern Anarchist” was published I was at a friends house hanging out and he wanted to show me something. He picked up this cassette player stereo and popped the cover off to the battery compartment. Out from that he pulled my magazines! He was hiding them from his mother, and it was the most amazing feeling for me. I’m sure I’d be embarrassed now, a bit, if I were to come across copies. But at that age, at that time, producing something that was kept hidden away in secret compartment – nothing illegal, just words and paper, was a powerful thing.

Over the last two decades I’ve repeated this simple DIY pattern. It’s now websites, podcasts, and real books, but it’s just variations upon a theme for the last two decades. When I woke up this morning I started reminiscing I opened up a word document and it got to the point that I would have had to dig into old boxes of zines and ephemera (I’ve got around 40 unmarked boxes of old magazines, much less the boxes of mixed paper ephemera, and my stuff is mixed in there somewhere), checking dates etc., and I’ve given up for the time being. When did I do what? Do I have this interview or that? I haven’t been keeping notes, and I don’t have the memory. I have saved things here and there though.

I hit “save” on that document and I might get back to it later. I’m just not the reminiscing type, I’d rather be working on things yet-to-be.

I’ve got interviews and segments I’m lining up for the podcast, details to work out for the gallery show, 5 or 6 books that need my attention in various ways so they can move forward, and a back-ache that was bad enough to go to the hospital for. I wanted to type something here before the muscle relaxers kicked in and I started blogging about waffles or started telling people what I REALLY thought.

I wanted to write a thanks list for people who influenced me, but it would have gone on too long, I would have left too many people out. I’d also want to thank you, for reading this blog and being interested in what I’m doing now. Though most of my projects are borne out of a healthy dose of self-interest, I know that they’ve got to have an audience and for the most part, collaborators.

Happy anniversary to Underworld Amusements and thank you.