Your host, enjoying a lovely Tijuana morning.

About Me, AKA FAQ&A:

Q: Just who the hell do you think you are?

A: I’ll admit, there’s probably a world of difference between who I think I am and how the rest of the world sizes me up. That’s just fine. I’ll keep on keepin’ on, and everybody else can do their thing. To answer your question a little more traditionally, my name is Mike Griffin. I was born and raised in the no-man’s land between Doraville and Dunwoody, GA. It’s now officially known as the City of Sandy Springs. But back in the day, it was just a dull and uninspiring swath of unclaimed territory at the intersection of Fulton, Gwinnet and DeKalb Counties. I went to Dunwoody High School. Ryan Seacrest delivered our morning announcements. Seriously, Ryan Seacrest delivered our morning announcements. I’ll let you look in the yearbook if you still don’t believe me.

Q: What do you do?

A: What don’t I do! Wait, that’s not a very good retort. There are a lot of things I don’t do, haven’t done, and then there’s the list of activities I flatly refuse to engage in. Occupationally, I’m a quasi-programmer for a small software company that develops custom applications for gigantic corporations. We’re small players in a vertical market of multinational competitors, and we’re starting to stick it to ‘em. I would elaborate, but I like to keep some things on the nebulous side. Bots, cops and various slugabeds with a Google fetish crawl the myriad ‘nets and ‘webs relentlessly, and as the television used to say, “you never get a second chance to make a first impression.” As for other activities, I like to write (obviously), I read a ton of books and magazines  (all of  ’em!), I write and record silly meandering tunes that don’t seem to do much beside stick in my head until I record them, and I play with my dog. I also have gobs of friends with whom I like to get into varying degrees of mischief. On a day-to-day basis, that’s about it. Days definitely come when I’m doing more exciting things, but the aforementioned activities are pretty descriptive of how I maintain in the mundane.

Q: What does “spacematic” mean? You some kind of science fiction geek or somethin’?

A: While I love both great and crappy science fiction, the term “spacematic” has nothing to do with that. It’s sort of a tribute to my brother, who was a big-time vinyl record collector back in the day. He traded rare, vintage and bootleg recordings of many bands, and he would often make cassette and CD copies for me to listen to. Since he was also a graphic designer before the advent and later ubiquity of Photoslop, he would make custom covers for some of the more obscure stuff. The old 1980’s method of graphic design was to buy sheets of rub-down (something not entirely unlike a Cracker-Jack tattoo) letters. The name brand was Letraset. The budget brand was Spacematic. What was nifty about these rub-down letters was that they came with a copyright notice that would say something like ©SPACEMATIC, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This provided bootleggers with a means of adding a smidgeon of legitimacy to their wares. If the dimwitted Postmaster General were to open your mail and peer inside, he/she would think the bootleg was legit, if that the graphic artist had a shred of talent. In record trading circles, the term “Spacematic Records” is a dead giveaway that you’re buying a bootleg recording. Were you to Google the term, you filthy slugabed, you’d readily see that the prolific Spacematic label has recorded the likes of Bruce Springsteen, U2, King Crimson, Dire Straits, and Alice In Chains, among many others. It is in the musical spirit that invoke the name “spacematic.” It does honor to my brother, and it hearkens back to a time when people slaved over drafting boards with T-squares and X-ACTO knives to produce the simplest layouts. I barely remember these days myself, but what I do remember, I remember most fondly.

Q: So why do you do this? I mean, like, don’t you have a facebook?

A: Okay, first things first. I do have a facebook page. But no, I don’t have a facebook. If I did have a facebook, I’d be as freakin’ rich as Mark Zuckerberg, and I wouldn’t be a quasi-programmer for a small software company. Instead, I would live at the beach with my dog and be as eccentric as the law would possibly allow, and quite probably beyond. I’d still keep this weblog, however. Let me edge off the snarky tone here and be a little more sincere. Facebook is a great app. I mean that. It’s allowed me to keep in touch with people I’d otherwise never hear from again. That’s rarely a bad thing. But as a blogging/personal home page tool, FB just doesn’t cut the mustard for the likes of me. I’m just too much of a geek, I guess. I love to customize shit and I like having tons of file transfer capability. I also like having my very easy-to-remember email address: mike at spacematic dot net. I spell it so that the spambots don’t flood my inbox more than they already do. Send me a message if you want. And definitely email me if you’re either Izquierda Enrique Quantum or Willie Habersham. There will be clarification on this soon…

Q: Anything else, you ridiculous, narcissistic ham?

A: I’m in my mid-thirties, I’m single, I currently live in the Bass High School auditorium in Little Five Points, I have a Cairn Terrier named Allie, and I like to play Scrabble and watch BBC documentaries. My favorite quote: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson. A great man named Lamar York introduced me to this. And while I don’t really live by it, I try to remember it when I need to escape self-imposed boundaries. If there’s anything else you’re itching to know, either drop me a line or leave a comment.

–mike