Part One: Dave the Nethead
by Subverterus and David V. Matthews
posted February 28, 2006
I interviewed him via e-mail on February 28, 2006.
First, tell our loyal readers about your cyberhistory.
I became a Nethead fairly late (but then trends tend to take their time arriving in Western Pee Ay, where I live). I didn't have an e-mail account until 1994. I didn't start my own website until February 2001. That site, Pixel Stupor, managed to annoy quite a few people. Several women refused to pursue relationships with me due to that site's detailed and unvarnished look at my dating "life"; the women didn't want their privacy invaded. And in late 2004 hackholes (or possibly the same hackhole) broke into my site twice and altered the homepage, adding a quote from Adolf "Hilter" and a link to a porn fetish site. Of course, I have no idea if I'd even annoyed the hackhole(s); maybe the alterations were nothing personal.
What happened to Pixel Stupor?
On Monday, March 14, 2005, my server deleted the site with no warning and no explanation other than that I'd somehow violated the Terms of Service. Unfortunately, I hadn't backed up everything on disk, so a lot of the site disappeared forever, including my entire 2004 blog, which contained some of my best pieces, such as "Chuck and Anita Kollister, Brooklyn, New York, Wednesday, June 14, 1972," in which Anita attempts a Wizard of Oz-themed seduction of her somewhat older hubby when he arrives home from his job at the phone company. (That's probably the wrong date in the title, but again, I don't have the story with me.)
What do you think upset your server enough to yank your site?
Maybe my 2005 blog entry about blowing up the comic-strip character Dagwood Bumstead with a suicide bomb (nooo--not Dagwood!). Maybe my story "Mr. Jitters," about a rather misogynist convenience-store clerk with a "scabby scalp." Maybe my links to wacko right-wing Christian sites. Maybe all, some, or none of the above.
Your second site, Coconut Orangutan, premiered July 2, 2005. How does this site differ from your previous one?
1. I've narrowed the scope of Coconut Orangutan. I thought my previous site was too scattershot and unwieldy. It featured endless links pages, paintings, drawings, and sketchbook pages, along with a variety of essays dealing with everything from the lack of interracial humping on The Cosby Show to tediously tearing new anuses for forgettable right-wing columnists in minor newspapers. My current site features mostly just my writing: blog entries, autobiographical essays, fiction, etc.
2. I've bowdlerized myself a little for Coconut Orangutan. At least doing so has forced me to write more creatively, to approach subjects from more original angles.
3. I no longer write about my dating or romantic life. I used to have horrible self-esteem; dating makes me feel confident in myself knowing women have some interest in me. Writing about my dates helped nourish my ego and advertise myself to available women, at what some women perceived as, again, an invasion of privacy.
Do you own the coconut orangutan in that photo on your home page?
Yes. I took that photo. I bought the orangutan in October 1995 at the gift shop at the Vista (now Doubletree) Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh. I needed to reward myself after spending three tedious hours at a downtown office, for an interview my temp agency had assigned me for a seat on a class-action jury. (I didn't get that seat.)
The orangutan and his or her baby orangutan have no names. Any suggestions?
Clyde and Baby Geezer?...Uh, your Myspace site began August 15, 2005. How does that site differ from Coconut Orangutan?
No frills--just a profile, blog, and photos.
Why'd you choose Myspace?
It was free, and I wanted to meet women. I've met a few, but no serious relationships.
By the way, I don't know how long I'll stay on Myspace. I have almost nothing in common with the other Myspacers; I don't instant-message, I don't own an iPod, I have no idea what a BlackBerry is, I don't post 67 photos of me drinking, and I don't want to copulate with bug-eyed anime characters. Maybe I've grown too old for the party-hearty consumer culture, and for ejaculating inside and upon cartoon characters.
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