The Back Story
Stumbled across something of particular personal interest today.First you gotta read this blogpost from Britcoal's archives,
scroll down and read the entry from Thursday May 27.
I came across this post whilst googling Ezra Fowler.
You see,
I still read Ezra's blog but I don't have it bookmarked so whenever I want to check up on it I just google Ezra Fowler. Ahead of Ezra's site Underlock was a mention of theminister.net in Britcoal's archives. Whenever I read the words theminister.net the memories come flooding back. I was a part of that close knit crew of friends who were a part of the blog community under Ezra's tutelage. In fact I was the one who gave Ezra the moniker 'The Minister of Brewed Beverages.' The 'Brewed Beverages' part came as part of my plan to take over the American political scene with a new party called The Beverage Party of America (I was really high most of the time back then). See the Beverage Party consists of a high council of ministers including
The Minister of Hot Beverages (not actually affiliated with theminister.net)
The Minister of Sweet Beverages
and The Minister of Beverages Concocted From Fruit
I was The Deputy Minister of Wordiness for The Beverage Party.
For a minute there we formed a tumultuous band called Hamotam.
That is only the origin of those names, Ezra kept the title The Minister cause I think he liked the sacrilegious aspect of it. He even had a fully functional online confessional.
Those were not the only people in The Minister's Circle,
there was Heather with the Lauren Tewes Fan Page,
and The Outlaw had his page kicking and there was Katherine Hand and Jenny Apple and Helen Jane , all of whom I didn't really know but they they knew Ezra. And then there was Glittergirl who lived in Sacramento and whom I never met but she was also quite taken with The Minister. I learned what a blog was from Ezra. He taught me how to set up a page. He taught me how to drive up traffic. I remember one time Ezra posted a Missed Connection on Craigslist that read 'I Had Sex with you on BART' (bart being bay area rapid transit) and it was this salacious tale about how someone had had sex with a total stranger on BART and the stranger had left their panties and there was a link to theminister.net. That was pretty cool. Ezra also did a lot with meta tags back when google was just getting revved up.
So Ezra had this web ring that kept us all in close contact during the day, I thought that what we had going was the bees knees, I thought our little web crew was the best and even back then I knew that we were a shining example of what blogs could be used for. It was an extention of our lives and our friendship. Then somewhere between the planes hitting the towers and Ezra taking down the site everything just spun out of control. I mentioned our musical endeavors, well part of the thing that tore our lives apart and tore mine and Ezra's friendship asunder was our creative differences. Things might have been cooler if it weren't for the steady stream of narcotics. I for one was pretty much spun the hell out from 9/11/01 all the way up until October 2003. I was so tweaked out I didn't know what an asshole I had become.
So Ezra and I had a falling out over a girl or two. We were both getting deep into our respective poisons. And like I say I had become quite the certifiable asshole. You see the thing is that when you snort meth (my chosen poison) its really hard to control the inflection of your voice which leads to a lot of misunderstandings. Its not worth splitting hairs over now but lots of foolish factors led to ruined friendships and burnt bridges. By Summer of '03 Ezra and I weren't even on speaking terms. I remember one thing that I did that started to drive the wedge between me and The Minister. In the spring of '02 Ezra went to Amsterdam. In his absence he gave me license to use his web page and to even post as The Minister. I guess he had only intended to have guest bloggers be themselves but I did all these posts as 'Ezra while wasted' and I think I was a little harsh on his self admitted alcoholic tendencies. I think I would have been more careful about things if I had known what the consequences would be.
One thing that I can mention that would explain the final nails in the coffin on theminister.net would be something that I read in Ezra's current blog about a year ago. I can't really remember the context but Ezra was talking about a conversation that he had with his Dad. Apparently his dad asked him what had happened to all his savings and his reply was simply (and I paraphrase) "..up my nose Dad." Much like my own life in San Fran Ezra's life seemed to have gone up his nose. The whole mess was pretty unfortunate.
Luckily however, I survived. Also quite lucky, Ezra survived. The friendships were dust in the wind but our lives were spared. I went back to Texas and he went to Florida. Ezra spent the last couple years getting things back in order. I believe that he attended a school for sound recording. According to his current blog he just moved to Portland this month. I got my shit together and I like the way things are but I can't help but wonder what would have happened if things hadn't gotten so out of hand. Where would the band be right now, where would theminister.net be right now. I have said it before and I will say it again, I am sorry, I am sorry to Ez and to all the people that were involved in that mess,
but dammit
it all felt so alive
even the shit
parts.
When I read that about theminister.net in Britcoal's archives, it made me feel really proud to have been part of that close knit crew of friends. It also made me realize that I have been blogging (not on this blog) since the early on in the life of the beast. So the next time any of you suckas feel like I just need to shut up about blogging already and you say that blogs "are so '04" well you better check yourselves cause I was there from the beginning bitches.
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