about this blog
I started this blog elsewhere as The Graffiti Wall back in February 1997 as an additional section to my old website (The Lynnster Zone, natch), which went live online at AOL in January 1997. The site itself was mostly music-centered, much of that devoted to The Replacements and Hoodoo Gurus and their side and later projects, with some personal junk thrown in.
I started The Graffiti Wall section mainly because it was a really easy way to keep my rather extended and various circles of friends updated with what was going on with me without having to send a ton of e-mails that said the same things over and over again. For many years, it was sort of a central communication point online for me, for the benefit of my friends as well as the many online and offline contacts and friends I’d made in The Replacements and Hoodoo Gurus circles worldwide. I was just happy not having to send out several dozen e-mails all the time anything new happened with me and my life.
So most of the early years’ blogging was mainly random stuff and daily happenings, heavy on the music news with those bands, their offshoots, and a few other bands. My site at one time had grown to a gargantuan hundred-odd pages, mostly music and Memphis stuff. What’s left of it as far as The Replacements, Paul Westerberg, and Hoodoo Gurus stuff is still often referenced today among those camps online (a discovery fairly recently that was kind of shocking to find, when I’d been mostly inactive as a site for so many years).
In the early part of this decade, I got too busy in my offline life to properly keep the old site updated and it went dead for a while, until I finally removed most of it early in 2006 (see My Old Music Pages in the sidebar for what’s left). Throughout most of this decade, the only thing that ever got updated much was the Wall, so I just took what had been done there - nine years’ worth - and moved it over to Blogger (with a mirror on LiveJournal, for backup purposes more than anything else - I spent too much time working on my LJ blog to justify giving it up). As I got more active blogging again, it evolved into what it is today… which is basically still just me babbling, except sometimes I have a topic these days, in keeping more with traditional blogging of today, rather than the relative stream-of-consciousness babble of yore. (Heh.)
I moved it over here to WordPress in December 2006, having defected from the scourge that is was Blogger Beta, and am just thrilled with WordPress. I should have moved it over here to begin with instead!
Apologies for the mess some of the really old entries are, but it was basically complete and utter hell moving all that stuff out of old HTML pages in the beginning, and took most of 2006 to move it all. In the end, I changed gears and took the easy way out, moving several months’ worth in bulk at a time instead of moving entries day-by-day, so that kinda sucks as far as screwing up the basic blog format, but it was just getting to be too much work to move in pieces like I initially started.
IMPORTANT: If jokes about drug addiction and alcoholism offend you, then you’re probably going to get offended here sometimes. The ex, the current, another ex, and many many of my friends all being in long-term recovery or otherwise - I’ve paid my dues putting up with their active addiction BS time and again, and as far as I’m concerned I can joke about it all I want, and I will and I do sometimes. Because crap they do or say is funny sometimes, in its own sick and twisted, laugh-to-keep-from-crying kinda way. And sometimes it’s just plain funny. There’s really very little in life I can’t find the humor in somewhere, and even in its pitifulness, that stuff sometimes amuses me, so you’re forewarned and if you find it offensive, you’re better off moving along. This is the last time I’ll make any disclaimers about it and I’ll never make any apologies for it.
Some of my closest longtime friends used to be a very big part of, and were regularly and frequently mentioned, in this blog, which you would find if you were to read very far back in the archives. At one time, KC even had a large interactive section of his own on my website. KC, Greg, Duncan, and Jay S. are no longer with us; like far too many of my close friends, all four of them have died, Jay in the late ’90s and the other three in 2003. Many of the rest who used to make regular appearances in this blog are still around, including Kelli (tho we are out of touch at present), Jules, JohnD, Bill AKA Billgill, Stef, Scott, Jay W., JJ, Jo AKA Josie, and the legendary Stevie Kane.
The Boyfriend was re-christened The Edge (Not of U2), because (A) “boyfriend” sounds kind of stupid when you’re 40 41 42 and he’s 38 39 40 years old; (B) Brittney G.’s ex was already well known as The Boyfriend around the Nashville blogging community anyhow; and (C) mine is one of those weird people who has never really had a nickname much to speak of except for Edge and it was a low-use one anyway, but kind of fits him or rather has overall in life, so it was ripe for a blog name when I desperately needed something. You can read all about the whole nickname quandary here if you’ve a mind to.
My sister Andra and brother-in-law Troy, who also make frequent appearances in my blog, are also alive and well, though relocated a while back to Nebraska. Don’t even get me started on that.
And finally - yes, probably 99.99% of the older post titles are taken from song lyrics, with some album and song titles thrown in on occasion (this may be subject to change soon for practicality’s sake, but at present those are still the majority). If you got that, I like you already.
Hit Me Up - Send E-mail, Y’all
To: thelynnsterzone at gmail dot com
My New Music Pages
My Old Music Pages
* THE FINE PRINT ON THAT ‘MATS GRAPHIC ABOVE: That way cool Replacements animation up there at the top was created by and is (c) 2008 Mike Monello and has been used by me with direct permission from the creator for over ten years. If you use it, give credit where credit is due! Thanks!
