It has been two years since I started this little blog thing. I hate the amount of time I spend on the internet but this has been a good way to test the waters with some writing, to promote Foulweather and whatever else I'm up to. Its also been a pretty amazing way to get contributors and like-minded people to collaborate with. Even though this 'blog community' is mostly virtual, it has also been instrumental in the establishment of some genuine friendships.
Foulweather itself started before this blog. I had actually just finished up the first issue and was thinking of ways to promote it. There was always a danger that this would become just another surf/skate blog and I struggled with that as my writing is not really about these two limited activities. Then I realized that surfing and skateboarding have been the lenses in which I've chosen to view the world and they have gone as far as to shape my personal politics and philosophies. I am a firm believer that one can often see more through a narrow focus than if one tried to digest it all by grasping after countless fragments randomly. And in a sense this is what Foulweather is becoming; a way of placing one's methods of escaping daily drudgery in a wider political context.
If you've read any of the nonsense I've written over the the last two years, you'll notice that I have some Luddite tendencies and that is why I'm still hell-bent on wasting hard earned money on printing an actual hard copy (maga)zine. I hope potential readers will dig the efforts of everyone involved and support independent publishing projects such as this and I hope it will encourage other people to do the same. Blogs haven't quite killed the zine writer...
Much thanks to everyone who has contributed so far. Max Macias, Saeed Farouky, Frank Cubillos, Justin Hocking, Rick Salcedo, Dave Fitzpatrick, Rick Albano, Jeff Petersen, Jason Powers, Dennis Dread, Gabriel Liston, Alison Lewis and Kara Dolan Trapani. And thanks to the Stiv and Ian from Wend Mag for giving me a chance to do what I do in a more 'professional' arena.
