No kicking this habit.

Published on: June 6th, 2019 | Last updated: June 5, 2019 | Written by: Joseph Anastasio

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When I read the words of one of the most creative young writers I know, it inspires me—it inspires me to forget everything I know, to stop—even if just for a moment—writing boring histories about places that no one heard of and fewer care about and just write.

But what – what on earth would I write about? This freedom to carefully and carelessly craft a crazy array of letters fonts typefaces and pixels, sentences and paragraphs and questions and verses and still more paragraphs flooding into run on sentences like Christopher Walken reading a script with complete disregard for grammatical correctness. What on earth is anyone to do with all this insane temporarily forgotten new found freedom to just say whatever the hell should be said? Or shouldn’t be said?

There’s no one here to stop me. I own this whole damned thing. This empire of photos and words and histories of things no one thought to know about. No gods no editors no masters. No one to say hey wait a minute what about whataboutisms? Be careful you might have a typo or missing semicolon or period and my god now their brains are pregnant. The word is the virus and it’s spreading.

This site has been online eighteen years now. That’s a long god damned time. It has half the content it used to, and is better off for it. What’s left is only the good stuff, of in-depth caliber. Where the hell else on the internet are you going to find some of these deep dark dive histories burrowing far past the stale piss smell at the end of the platform, down the little ladder and maybe three hundred feet into this barely lit tunnel, where you find a small hole in the floor next to a drain and a ladder going into some section of subway tunnel that no one ever heard of?

Indeed, despite my recent writers block, this site will persist, like that nagging feeling many of you already have every time you wake up and stare at that empty coffee mug and the caffeine addiction you never intent to kick: There’s more to all of this. There’s always something deeper, something unseen. It’s time we went there, together. So get on your ski mask and your inner secret crooked self. Get into character. Get in the game.

Comments

NOTE: It sometimes takes a short while for comments to be approved - unfortunately there's a lot of spam comments that come in. I absolutely love when y'all share personal stories of friends relatives etc who worked in these places. It really helps capture what these places were like before they closed up shop.

If you're feeling salty, argumentative comments completely devoid of facts (supply links to support your argument) will not be published. Got a case to state? come with the details.

3 responses to “No kicking this habit.”

1. BillyG says:

   June 6, 2019 at 9:56 AM

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   Nice post Joe!

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2. chrisfyb says:

   July 2, 2019 at 12:28 PM

   Yeah doggy!

3. andrea meyers says:

   September 5, 2019 at 5:21 PM

   Your work is the best…
   Never stop!

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