The Ravens Nest

A Eulogy For The Internet

The New World Instruction – True independent media – Cthulhu Sex Magazine – The Winds of Change Carry A Stench

It was a night off of work.

I was balls-deep in a cultural movement about which, you know nothing.

Late nights for eight to twelve hours, I cranked dials and screamed my way down the fiber-optic lines.

Damned right, I reported from the front lines of cyberspace.

The numbers were low. The tension was high. None of us cared—we were building something real.

Some of us had home studios that rivaled that of terrestrial and satellite stations. The boundaries that others had told us we needed to be acceptable, to us, were just paperwork.

This was the internet.

Our domain.

We do what we like and we love what we do. Selah!

We created without permission, consent and approval except from the bands we played to use their music. None of that mattered.

I was conducting interviews and drinking tequila. The vibes of the show would viciously jangle the nerves of anyone not in their twenties or early thirties.

I was armed with a $300 eMachine, headphone splitters, a dedicated soundcard, folders full of music from independent bands, a landline speakerphone, pop screens, the attitude that no one cared what the hell I used as long as I could hold the stream.

You didn’t find us indexed in search engines. You found us by the same word-of-mouth that everyone else did.

In fact, that’s how I wound up published in the aughts. Both before and after I started doing Internet Radio. I’ve been published this entire time. Cthulhu Sex Magazine was THE independent horror underground mag that dealt with eldritch horror, smut and a host of other things including my 20-something attempt at gothic poetry.

3/18/26 3:20pm

Two cups of tea.

A few hits of Crash Cake.

Second Life.

Atlas Shrugged Book on Tape on The Walkman.

The earbuds in my ears hum as the narrator reads in his declarative tone.

Who is John Galt? Indeed.

Talking to Khai as I sit on the beach, watching a sunset.

I relate to Khai about the equipment that I used. I told him the story of the radio days and how things were supposed to be. He’s far younger than me and only knew MySpace by name.

That equipment would give you near-godlike omnipresence.

Pop on a persona, build an illusion.

You’re not reaching them. They were finding a frequency from a dreadnought deep in cyberspace

Your stream becomes a sonic middle finger.

You become man, myth, legend, late night host and pride yourself on being an “Internet Terrorist Scum of The Earth, Come On!” armed with twin Fuck You Cannons, a soundboard to counter hecklers who call in and a a raw, sneering vent…

You drown in music sent to your door or MySpace notifications.

Great times.

There was a time you went “viral” because others talked about you. Bands are calling you, talking about sending all of their releases that you don’t have (Happened!)

These bands now had reach they never dreamed of and we were to be their engine.

I ran out railing against terrestrial mainstream media. I firmly found myself a disciple of rock music none of you even probably know exists.

The Virus sent out its signal all over the planet.

People recommended you. You took requests live. The fans of those bands turned up.

I never missed a chance to see a live show after that. Rooms packed with people all gathering to see four or five people play all the hits they’ve heard on my show and some they haven’t. That little eMachine was not just a vehicle, but an open gateway into a world that had been forever locked to me.

They came for the music.

They stayed for me.

They saw me at venues and got pics of us together for our respective MySpace pages. Social media was a mere extension of real life, a versatile tool to be used to gather your people and build community.

It Was Rock All Night, Sleep All Day.

More importantly, there was conversation. We were open, coming together and most of all, though fragmented and federated, with audiences spread thin and at least a couple of years ahead of the tech that would finally allow our voices to be heard all over the planet. No subscriptions. No fees. No bullshit. All Live.

We. Became. The. Media.

I was right in the middle of the maestrom.

I remember relaxing in my chair in my bedroom. The desk next to the bed and Izzy, my little rescue (literally kept him from being mowed down by a truck in the middle of the night as a kitten) staring at me from the bed while I howled and raged. The voice needed a rest.

I needed a piss and a Pepsi.

For one moment, as I surveyed the screen with it’s esoteric playlist, soundboard, a desktp mic pointed at my face like one of my Fuck You Cannons, I remember thinking, “That’s it, Screwheads…game over. We’ve won.”

Some of us landed interviews with people like Zakk Wylde. For this reason, Vic Mendoza will forever be the model for anyone who wants to create a fun rock show that went on during the daytime. I was Mendoza’s yang to his yin but still, we formed the same circle. We hung out. We talked and even though we were miles apart on some issues, we just disregarded those and discussed that upon which we agreed wholeheartedly; Rock N’ Roll Forever. The VM Underground Show will always be fondly-remembered.

Underground.

Deeper.

That’s where I went.

Toward the end of ‘08, it was all over for me. I’d planned on returning but first, I had to move and quickly. I had to quit my job, uproot my entire life and lay the hammer down before the villagers began to sync up their schedules to play Pitchforks & Torches again. The puritans would come for me because of the hideous alchemical construct chained in the attic, howling prophecies of impending doom.

I should have listened.

Note: Do Not Introduce Alchemical Promethean Constructs To Tarot! It Does Not End Well.

Load up the Nissan Hardbody pickup, throw it into gear and haul your life’s remnants halfway across the continent.

The only collision that ever needed to happen was what we built, combining with technology that was going mobile.

I screamed. I howled. I spoke loudly, offensively, often. I intentionally broke every rule the FCC offered Terrestrial Radio. Right into the void.

Sometimes, the void screamed back. We were speeding toward the future, but we didn’t see the truck coming. It wasn’t a car; it was a convoy of lawyers and lobbyists, moving at the speed of a federal mandate. We hit the wall of the NDAA and the DMCA head-on, and the wreckage was scattered across the digital landscape.

The ‘Old Guard’ rewrote the rules of the road while we were still driving.

I’d find another voice, then another, and another.

In the darkness under the noise, we’d find each other. We were stronger and more cohesive back them.

We were like bats screaming into the wires, mapping out the networks, committing acts of sonic vandalism you’d never come to know or understand. Sonic dissonance with extra steps.

Worth it.

In some dim backroom, suits from Washington and Silicon Valley found a common language: control..

Actual fascism—the merging of corporate and political power—was here. It came a face that everyone assured us would be about hope.

Change certainly occurred! Not for the better and the evidence is right in front of you!

We built the on-ramps.

They bulldozed them.

They sold you on a bill of goods and now, you don’t even have the goods.

You now purchase content when it was once freely-given by us and the indie bands we worked with.

Hope…And Change…Selah.

“Free Speech Is Not A Zone!” I used to hear.

Now, neither is it free in any sense, even if you pay handsomely through the ass for it.

6:25 pm.

Talking about the Internet Radio Days and how Satire means never having to say you’re sorry…

Damien Cross: Definitely the mortar for the bricks. That’s the thing about the best and most timeless comedians…that’s their stock and trade

Khai: I learned it from the very best. The Goons… early 50s radio show. No glitzy graphics, focus-group-kowtowing, political correctness. The pictures conjured by the scenarios were hilarious and impossible to do in movies… I mean.. “In a thrice, they hitched my piano to a huge, piebald chicken and towed it away! Grief! Mourning! Overacting”

Damien Cross: Jesus, man! A Piebald Chicken! They’ve gone sideways! Carrier Pigeons are far more hardy. Made of sturdier stuff and are much more cost-effective as well as expedient! These people can not be trusted! They are liars, thieves and writers of bad cheques!

Khai: Revolution, Brother! Long Live The Huge, Piebald Chicken Party!

Damien Cross: You are supporting a monopoly! And a bad one! The Carrier Pigeon, Raven and Pony are superior and proper competition with rates that are affordable to anyone. You’re crazy. The Piebald Chicken is inferior technology. It is buggy and needs much work before it revolutionizes how the thing fucking walks!

Khai: Ah… but no bad eggs in our party. No way. No foul play. Fertiliser For The Masses™. Our Motto: On A Wing And A Prayer™ and all the naysayers can CLUCK OFF

Damien Cross: We have a multitude of wings and a proven track record. You need the prayer!

The devastation on our end was total. Headed by regulation, it smashed into what we built in order to protect The Old Guard, fatbacks had built a pale imitation to sell to you.

We gave ours because we loved it. Money would come later, if at all.

Somewhere deep down, I wanted to quit that corrections job and become a full-time internet radio host.

The internet is a place still full of life and promise but the potential will never be realized until we take political hands, cut them off and let them draw back stumps as a warning.

Even I climbed out from under the smoldering remains. I limped away.

Hopes crushed. Dreams destroyed. We paid the price. We didn’t get our change out of it, that much is certain.

MySpace’s erasure hurt in many ways. Everything we’d ever worked to build, including our networks…was now just another music site.

The voices that came out of that time, the ones you may be pointing to and saying “Uh Uhhhh…this one has a show on CNN Now!”

Yes. We know why. Take the check, say the script, go home. Easily bribed and countered. Co-opted.

Still, their erasure is not complete. I still hold physical evidence of it.

There was a time where we were speeding toward the future, speakers blaring and cigarettes being defiantly smoked, middle fingers flying full-mast and the interesting little feeling that comes along when you look at the Old Guard and you smirk and go, “The fuck you gonna do about it?”

People were tuning in to us, the audiences were thin because of the tech and reach limitations but the Old Guard knew we were there and they knew we were a threat.

You can’t become the media anymore—unless you take the check and say the lines.

Today, many of you clamor for a time that never was for you. I only have the relics left. Just a couple of magazines, music and archives that the law says I cannot share with you. For many’s sake, I do wonder if this was the change people hoped for. If so, then I hope they’re happy.

Politics and Politicians can still suck my toenails. Cheap-suited lying bastards across the board without a single exception. In fact if you have a title, you’re part of the problem. You can be co-opted just like the few of ours were. You’ll learn. One day…but today is not that day, apparently and I’m not holding my breath on it anymore.

What kind of internet am I trying to show you? The one you keep ignoring. The one that brought us here today.

“We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias… and you call us criminals.

You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it’s for our own good, yet we’re the criminals.”

Loyd Blankenship’s words never ring more true than now and many of you missed it. You were introduced to an internet that has been cleaned, sanitized, no, Sterilized beyond the capacity for even Charles Dexter Ward to comprehend and made to believe it was “always this way.”

What kind of Doctor would I be if I didn’t speak to the contrary?

At least the relics of that time prove that the erasure was not complete. That, at one time we had physical relics tied to an internet that was used to enhance our lives instead of become them.

We had that once. We took it for granted, and we lost it.

Tom Anderson deserved better

We failed you, Tom. And we’re dreadfully sorry for it.