Exploiting the Present: The Gathering Birthed the Video Star

I have a confession to make. I have not been able to work ahead on this site as much as I would have liked to over the last couple of days on account of I was a little wrapped up in covering the Juggalo March on Washington for High Times and also being one of its speakers. I managed to watch All Wifed Out, today’s Control Nathan Rabin entry, in a rocking chair at the Baltimore airport immediately before I took the train to D.C but the sheer workload endemic in running Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place makes it tough to work ahead at all, but particularly when you factor in something like the Juggalo March on Washington. 

I would love to share the speech I delivered at the March on Washington but I don’t have video or audio of it yet (if you do, please do not hesitate to holler at a ninja!) so I figured I would substitute two really great videos Reason and Paul Detrick put together about the Oklahoma City Gathering of the Juggalos and the Juggalo March on Washington respectively, that I appear in fairly extensively. 

I taped my bit for the Gathering video in a smoking room at the Medical Inn, a singularly gross motel room that somehow managed to be more disgusting than the grungiest tent at the Gathering. I was happy with my contributions to the video, but I didn’t realize how popular it was, particularly among Juggalos, until I started getting recognized repeatedly at the March, sometimes as the author of two books and countless articles about Insane Clown Posse but more often as the guy from that Reason video in the hotel room. 

When you agree to a video or radio or phone interview, you never really know how it’s going to turn out, or what it’s eventual impact will be, if any. So I was surprised and impressed that a single elegantly assembled video could make me Juggalo famous. 

I talked to the Reason crew again for the March and this time I figured even more prominently. It’s a really lovely video that as of this writing has been seen over 260,000 times on Reason alone, and another 150,000 on Youtube. I’m thinking that’s pretty good for a video that’s only been up for two days. 

I’m really happy with how I come off here. Even thinking about keeping the salt and pepper beard. Might as well own looking like a weird, overly intense old dude. I’ve been doing a lot more in-camera stuff as of late and feeling more confident about it, particularly since the response has been so positive. And no, I would never, ever read the comments on Youtube for this. I would sooner leap into a vat of acid. 

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