A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
Posted by Administrator (waterloggedadmin) on Dec 23 2007 at 5:31 PM
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Web-designer-extraordinaire and Waterlogged photo guru Joe Arthur and I have been friends since kindergarten, and in that time we’ve developed a sort of hybrid language that consists of equal parts English and ridiculous, nonsensical gibberish. For example, Joe might call me up and say, “Yatata, Yahtzee,” and strangely enough, I’ll know exactly what he means. Maybe that’s why we’ve decided to invest our time on this project: it gives us an opportunity to combine our strongest moments of gibberish to create something crystal clear, something tangible for the masses. After all, our gibberish isn’t really just gibberish; to us, it all means something, and more often than not, that something can turn into pretty spectacular stuff.

I remember driving to Joe’s house the summer before I left for college in Maine. We cruised around the neighborhoods in my truck, talking about nothing at all and knowing somewhere in that quiet place in our brains that we were writing what would become our history. At that time, of course, it had no more to do with writing history than it did with solving a trigonometry problem or contemplating the role of the bark beetle in pine forests. We just drove because that’s what kids did before they left for college.

Eventually we stopped in some random empty cul-de-sac and sat on the tailgate of my truck. I remember it being dark and very foggy, and we joked and laughed the way we always did: in a combination of English and gibberish guaranteed to make us laugh approximately every two seconds. As I sat on the tailgate and Joe paced, smoking a cigarette, I remember thinking, tomorrow this changes. Tomorrow this goes away. As if to reinforce that notion, Joe stopped pacing and said, “We’re going to do big things. Don’t you think?”

The simple answer was, of course, yes. I did think we were going to do big things, and a part of me always thought those big things would be a product of the two of us, not just one or the other. For years, that idea weighed on my mind. And please don’t let me fool you into believing I always knew it might come to fruition—whatever it was.

We tried so many different outlets: music (oh, the open mics!); writing; talking; photographing; one time, sometime around eighth grade, we even tried to script and create our own video game.

All to no avail.

But here we are, older (but still quite young), with a real, viable medium through which to do our ‘big things,’ as I knew we always would. But there’s something else I didn’t count on: Joe and I aren’t alone as we achieve this goal of doing big things.

You’re here, too.

And we’re so glad to have you.

Take a spot next to us on the tailgate of the truck. Watch the fog roll by and tell us a story. You’ve just joined a legendary friendship, and all you have to do is combine equal parts English and gibberish to make us laugh, snicker, cry, think, or just exist in the solitude so evident. Just think: Joe and I always knew we could do big things. With you here, imagine just how—BIG!—big can get.

--Dan Cavallari