Okay, so yesterday I talked about how I got to anonymously write smut for a trashy magazine — and got paid to do it. An easy gig with a good payday and I got to do it without anyone ever knowing it. What a rush, yeah?

Since I finished that job, I’ve thought about how cool it would be to do other anonymous projects, just ones I had more control over. Could I do it? Would it be worth it? How long would it be before I finally let my secret out? Well, for these projects, those questions don’t even matter because I never started them. But I wanted to!

Sharp Objects — a Quasi-Fake Music News Website / Universe

The Used’s song A Box Full of Sharp Objects has many possible meanings. Frontman Bert says the song is about notes on sheet music — sharp objects in a box — being a “beautiful thing.” My website was going to be dedicated to heavy music of all varieties but would be all about bands with one thing in common: they wouldn’t actually exist. I would use this platform to create bios for supergroups who weren’t real, design their album covers, review their music and even give a platform for actual musicians to share their crazy stories from the studio and the road under pseudonyms. Over time I could see top-secret, actual behind-the-scenes information musicians had sworn to secrecy getting leaked on the site after it was deemed satire and in that way, music industry secrets would be revealed without actually being verified. Almost like Post Secret only more metal.

Years later apparently someone actually did something like this. His name is Jered Threatin and he created a fake band (that he played lead guitar and sang in) on a fake label (that also fake-released music by other fake bands on) that got reviewed on fake music review sites. All were his creation. His fake band’s social media accounts had thousands of fake followers and his “live” footage on YouTube had been cleverly edited to make it appear as though he was performing in front of sold-out crowds. After years of creating this identity, he was able to convince three other musicians to go on a European tour with him where he planned to play gigs at very real venues that he’d convinced to book him based on his fake agent’s guarantee of a certain number of fake tickets sales. His band found him out during said tour when no one actually came to the shows and they slowly left him. Once his secret was out, he then attempted to say this was all a part of his brilliant marketing plan intended to grow his fame as a musician. This is all real … it really happened.

I would’ve never gotten caught.

I ended up never pursuing this because … that’s a LOT of work for basically nothing in return.

ACS: Street Artist

Many of you remember back when I was way into the world of street art. More than anything else, something I love about street art is it’s created with the understanding that it may be gone tomorrow. There’s always been something philosophic, poetic and even therapeutic about the destruction of art in my eyes and I’ve always loved to destroy my own as a result. What better way to feed that than by creating sketches, doodles and full-on spray-painted murals in different, very random, parts of town?

Rumor has it that one of my early pieces is still in the women’s bathroom at Empire Pizza (formerly I <3 NY Pizza) in Knoxville. If you ask me how my sketch ended up in the women’s restroom, I don’t have an answer for you. Not because it’s inappropriate or just a big secret … but because I truly don’t remember being in there. But it, too, is very real.

I didn’t pursue this because I know how real street artists move around under cover of darkness and I just can’t stay out that late no matter how passionate I am about my art.

@YouTossedThis — A Gallery of Thrown-Out Art

I’m a sucker for some strange things, I get it. But one of my favorite things is finding lost or otherwise tossed art. And when I say “art” I’m using the term loosely. Children’s doodles in the parking lot? Yup. Very strange homemade artwork found in the back of Goodwill? You bet. And my favorite? Handwritten notes and doodles out of books found in the free bin at used book stores. I also love writing stories about how they maybe came about.

I once found a church bulletin inside a used devotional in the free bin at McKay’s in Knoxville. Someone was feeling the Holy love that day and decided to write an over-used, super cliche bible verse on the back of their bulletin. Carefully, and in perfect form that took me back to my days studying calligraphy, they wrote “Love is patient, love is kind. It does n…”

… and that was it. It’s like they started writing the heartfelt verse and then realized “SHIT … this verse is really long,” and stopped. Probably distracted by thoughts of Applebee’s is my guess.

Anyway, it would’ve been an Instagram or Tumblr account. Sometimes a single line, other times a poem, other times a full story. You don’t tell me what to do.

This one is still on the table but I’ve not done it yet and if I do, I’m changing the name because y’all know it now.

Want to know something that I AM doing anonymously?

I have a band.

And I have music on the internet.

And it’s terrible; and I love it.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

See you tomorrow, weirdos.