THE GOBLIN NEWSLETTER 63

(The above image is an old zine cover I never used)

I went through a major shift in consciousness when I hit 22. I wasn’t where I wanted to be in life, I wasn’t even sure what I wanted but I knew that the little world of Punk wasn’t cutting it for me. I felt woefully incomplete. I knew I wanted a wife & kids, but I had no idea what my life would like. It was terribly alienating from the Punk scene that had been my world up until then. I was cutting my own path through life. I had known for a while that this was what I had to do, but I felt lost as soon as I stepped out. A bunch of things happened that threw me for continuous loops. I decided to go to art school. I knew I had so much to learn. In art school I quickly realized that art school wasn’t for me but I gained my wife Katie out of the whole experience so it was well worth it. I also know the answer to that art school indeed isn’t for me, which is a question that I could only know the answer to with experience. I then worked at the Oakland Public Library for several years. I spent long breaks reading any book that caught my eye in the stacks & reading old newspapers on microfilm. I could feel my brain expanding, pulsating with new ideas. The Library taught me that service was important to me, & in particular service to people I had nothing as isolated as Punk in common with was also new, broadening to me. It was while I was working at the Library that we started working with Jeff Hull & his Nonchalance/Oaklandish projects. Doing art & everything as a “we” was really big for me as well. Up until that point I had really been Sean vs. the World, a mentality that I’ve only recently shed. I understood that I had something to give & I felt like I could actually give it. I got hooked on this expansion mentality. I lost the ability to think small.