From Somewhere, Volume Two

A story I tend to repeat a lot is why I strarted doing websites in the first place. So, for the first time on interwub- the (a)Rw origin story.

(And also, I can now just forward people HERE instead of repeating this tale again.)

1995. I was writing mainly for print pubs, when AOL was looking for folk to moderate and write content for their ‘communites’. For this- you got free AOL, the value of which at the time (and this was when the service still charged by the hour) was equaling what I was actually being paid at the local ‘zine- only with way more exposure. And-through the drip of dial up-at some point I could also have my own internet pitstop.

I did this for three years- moderating a variety of forums on AOL’s Entertainment Community/ Channel (at one point or another holding various mod/ chat host posts at the service’s music, soaps, games, comics, SFTV, BABYLON 5, and Cartoon Network areas).

This was the period when America Online was exploding- litterally (and now, somewhat unbelievably), AOL was how most of us in that time got to the internet.

Another early internet phenom I lucked into was Harry Knowles’ AINT IT COOL NEWS. They had an open door submition policy at the time (so long as you came up with your own stupid ‘Studio Spy’ handle) and I fed Glenn Oliver’s COAXIAL part of the site a few animation items.

It was through researching a bit for AICN (when, silly me, I mistakenly thought one needed to research for anything being posted on AICN) I came upon Ken Plume and- in the midst of entering a contest- became a writer for his TIBBYS BOWL site.

At some point AOL decided to go further in creating its own content- broke up the communities, adopted the “Channel” format. The centerpiece of the AOL Entertainment Channel was a news service called Entertainment Asylum-high powered, high budget, high concept vehicle which was part original written content and part streaming video.

The Asylum was part of Greenhouse Studios- AOL’s in-house connection to Hollywood before Warners bought them. Greenhouse teamed recently former NBC programming wizard Brandon Tartikoff with Scott Zakarin and Troy Bolotnik (the duo behind the internet’s first original program- the interactive soap opera THE SPOT) to head up the entertainment site and set up the first internet broadcast studio. At the time, was a big deal.

The Cache part of the deal was that Asylum would also be the first AOL content to be made available to the Internet at large. So-when offered the choice-I went for getting my written content on the mega Asylum site as opposed to trying to tell 12 year olds how to behave in a chat room.

This change led to two rather interesting early lessons about the Internet:

1) All sites made by AOL look like shit. Still true to this day, in fact…
2) When it comes to the Internet, Hollywood is fickle.

It is on this second point that in 1998, I found myself out of work at Entertainment Asylum. Tartikoff died in late 1997- and without Tartikoff’s TV titan cache, Greenhouse Studios soon followed. Entertainment Asylum was slowly taken offline and buried deep with the AOL service-where it too eventually died.

It was during this process – while I was kinda still with AOL but writing for other people- that I got it in my head that maybe it was time for me to go off and have my own thing. The thought went that I could go and do the jorno stuff for other people, and have my own place for fiction or other ideas that fall into what I’m already doing somewhere else.

And, most importanly-I could control how my work actually looked. This was important- again- because most of my work at that point was seen through AOL’s horrible colors.

Built up a little bit of lead time, and about a year later- randomwerks.com was launched, with Part One of …and the Doors Opened (which will re-appear in it’s original format in October).

So, that’s your origin story- I appologize for the lack of radioactivity…….