My name is Joe, born November 3, 1985, in rural southern Wisconsin, complete with cows, raspberry fields and star-filled skies. I graduated from the University of Wisconsin in Madison with a degree in journalism and mass communication in May 2008, and moved to Chicago shortly thereafter. I work as a freelance writer and editor. My main current projects include regular writing for the LGBT news and entertainment webzine EDGE Chicago, proofreading for a dot-com and working on a novel.
The original title for this blog – ‘Reality TV Makes Me Cry’ – was very much based in fact. I am a self-confessed sucker for the sentimentality of televised false realities. The blog was started in November 2007 as a place to spout off about the world around me — particularly within the world of music, politics and queer issues.
As my writing career has evolved, it’s become more of a “blogfolio” – spotlighting my work and offering me somewhere to vent. The new title – ‘Unsuccessful Writer No Failure As Hero!’ – is taken from John Irving’s “The World According to Garp.” I don’t particularly consider myself “unsuccessful,” but I certainly aspire to hero status some day.
When it comes down to it, I am just another queer male, writing just another queer blog about the silliness of it all. I enjoy electronic music, Diet Coke, theater, Middle Eastern politics, art and bubbles.
And yes, I really like music. I’d tell you more about that, but couldn’t find a better way to do so than copying and pasting the results of a “the first 25 songs to come up randomly on your mp3 player” chain letter thinger, conducted on 10/23/09. Here they are. These are my defining songs.
- To the Lighthouse – Patrick Wolf
- Feeling Good – My Brightest Diamond
- I’ll Dream of You Tonight – Hem
- Closet Romantic – Damon Albarn
- Listen Now – The Knife
- Vanished – Crystal Castles
- Idioteque (BBC Remix) – Radiohead
- Permanent Scar – O + S
- Fish to Fry – The Ditty Bops
- Heads Will Roll (Passion Pit Remix) – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
- Hollow Talk – Choir of Young Believers
- As Tears Go By – Marianne Faithfull
- Immature – Bjork
- Apres Moi – Regina Spektor
- Heart It Races – Architecture in Helsinki
- Gangsta’s Paradise – Coolio
- Transliterator – DeVotchKa
- Pon De Floor (Chewy Chocolates Remix) – Major Lazer
- World In My Eyes (Cicada Remix) – Depeche Mode
- Sans Soleil – Miike Snow
- I’m Not Scared – Ladytron
- Teardrops – The xx
- Daylight and the Sun – Antony and the Johnsons
- Day-O – Harry Belafonte
- Rise & Shine – The Cardigans
Yep, that’s pretty representative. Especially the Coolio and Cardigans tracks. (Mash-up idea?)
