The Stan Spire Story

© Stan Spire 2009


What’s my story?

The germ: a one-page double-sided zine called “Anti-Press.” A satirical reaction to the local daily (news)paper. Published anonymously. The Plattsburgh daily paper never printed signed editorials, so why couldn’t I hide behind anonymity? I even used the editorial “we.”

Distribution was a problem. A restaurant owner told me “No more.” He had employees of the Plattsburgh paper as customers and didn’t want to offend them. Later his spineless weasel wrote a column for the paper. Just a coincidence, eh?

After two print issues I was going to give up. I took the material I had and published them online in newsgroups, just to get it out there.

Then Morbus of disobey.com came along. He liked my stuff and offered to publish it at his site. “Anti-Press” became “Anti-Press Ezine” (APE for short). At one point I had over 300 email subscribers.

An online magazine wanted to interview me about my ezine and online publishing. But the reporter told me that her editor wouldn’t accept “Anti-Press” as a name; I needed a more legit appellation.

Some anagrammatic magic and “Anti-Press” became “Stan Spire.” By this time I had dropped the editorial “we.” Too confusing. Some readers thought I had a staff working for me.

Morbus decided to take his site in a different direction. So I moved on to blogging: Anti-Express Express (to keep the APE abbreviation). Then I got tired of the APE business and wanted to focus more on myself as an individual character. Ergo, this blog.

“Character” is the key word. Besides personality, it also refers to persona. My online role. Alter ego, if you will.

As Stan Spire I can say what I want without the self-censoring forced upon me by public contact in meat space. And while some details in my posts might be a little vague, the essential truth is still there.

So here I am, like it or not.