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well, fuck. blindwino.com bites the dust?

Shit. It seems that blindwino.com has been domain grabbed. I hope this doesn't mean Mark Driver has intentionally let the domain lapse with no plans to keep writing. But, if that isn't the case it still means some bastard has nicked his domain.

Either way there's no Blind Wino/Driver Down to be had; and so far I haven't seen him pop back up anywhere.

I really enjoy Mark Driver's writings, not least his self-published book Just Another Empire. But I'd been reading his website for years. Would hate to see that end.

He has an amazing ability to combine vitriol, clarity, comment and an apparent wealth of life experience. The posts that result (bless the wayback machine!) are quite something to read.

So anyway, if anyone finds Mark Driver hanging around in some corner of the net; please let me know.

Update: Although nobody seems to know where Mark Driver has got to, head on over to Blindwino.com Memories for an archive of his writings.

Another update... twitter.com/MarkDriver and blindwino.wordpress.com certainly have a familiar writing style. If it's not Driver, someone's doing a good impression:

My old site? Mmm, come with me as we travel through the excretory system of late-capitalism’s terminal decline! I lost my URL to Network Solutions, who are a smoking carload of hooting retards. Somehow they managed to find an email account from 15 years ago as my primary contact. Then, though I tracked them down before the URL expired, they wouldn’t let me renew without paying $150 extra. Fuck ‘em. Blindwino was bought by some Limey Sisterfister and is being used as a tool to get links on Google. He wanted $1500 for my site. Yay! Please feel free to email him with time-wasting offers and recipes for hymen pirogi.

I look forward to seeing how this latest incarnation unfolds.

Comments

Anonymous

February 12, 2008 8:25 am

yeah, mark driver was great. i hope he resurfaces.

Anonymous

February 25, 2008 2:21 pm

Heck. Just noticed that too, having not visited the site in forever. What a bummer! Have his book, hope there'll be more coming some day.

Anonymous

March 14, 2008 3:53 am

Fuck, Mark's got to come back! Blindwino.com was pretty much the best thing on the internet.

Anonymous

March 26, 2008 6:31 am

Just discovered this too, and found this site while googling to see if I could find him anywhere else. He hadn't posted for a long time- hope he's ok.

Anonymous

April 26, 2008 5:56 am

this is a soul-crushing blow of staggeringly epic proportions. I've been reading Driver for years and when I finally get back to the good ole' US of A, I find out that "Fabulous Domains" has acquired the URL?

Anyone know if Driver sold it to them?

Anonymous

April 27, 2008 3:05 pm

I have also been reading him for some time now. I, just now, had relooked up the domain, and am also dismayed that he has lost the domain. I remember getting almost expelled for using the info on his website to make a presentation on cannibalism so i hope we can still have access to his unique brand of humor. :D

200ok

April 27, 2008 4:05 pm

It had been an awfully long time since his last update - so yeah, I hope he's ok too. I periodically have a search for his name but nothing has turned up so far. I don't have much more to go on, sadly. The only emails I ever knew used the same domain name.

Anonymous

May 16, 2008 7:00 pm

his site had only been updated twice in the past 2 years, so it's not unexpected that he finally let it die. all good things must come to an end and all that jazz.

and I also have his book and had been reading him for eons, just to add my voice to the choir.

Anonymous

June 10, 2008 1:13 pm

I emailed the gentleman who bought up the blindwino.com domain name, he informed me that he bought it at auction after the domain had expired. Couldn't give me any info on Mark of course. Wasn't he last in Pittsburgh, PA? I live about three hours from there with a lot of friends in the city, I'd like to try and track him down and see what (if anything) he's been doing lately. If anyone has any information, I'd like to know where to start. Been a fan of Mark's ever since the Crash Site days. - russ61959174@yahoo.com

Anonymous

June 22, 2008 1:15 pm

I used to know mark in high school and kept up with his writing on the net throughout the years. I am not sure what happened after he moved to Pittsburgh. He used to be in the band Snitches get Stitches, which do not appear to have any updates on their site either (so they may be defunct now). Mark's name on mypace is Fairy Lice and no updates on there since last year. i definitely miss reading his rants. :-(

Anonymous

June 28, 2008 1:11 am

I'll add myself to the group of people saying they've been reading his stuff forever. I do remember this happened with Crashsite, it went down or expired and Driver was MIA for a while, so hopefully he turns up again. In one of his last few posts he talked about going back to school, so maybe he just got too busy with school. Now let's try and track down Slap Maxwell!

Jonathan

October 27, 2008 10:48 am

I've been looking for a copy of Just Another Empire for a couple months now. I'm looking to buy it for a close friend who read it a couple years ago, lent it to a friend and said friend moved w/o returning it. She's said that it was one of her favorite books. I've tried to contact his former band and Mark himself through his music myspace, but haven't had any success. I know that this is unlikely, but I was wondering if you knew of any source through which I could buy a copy of Just Another Empire. Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

200ok

October 27, 2008 11:35 am

@jonathan: Since it was a short-run, self-published book I can't see it being re-released anywhere, unfortunately. So I think your best bet would be to watch places like eBay, register to buy it used on Amazon and stuff like that. It's still a bit of a long shot of course but second-hand really is the only option.

Anonymous

December 04, 2008 1:59 pm

I just moved and found Just Another Empire on my shelf in the basement and have started reading it a second time. I checked in to see blindwino again and sad to see it gone, but shame on me I hadn't checked it out in several years. He was always entertaining. My favorite post was "the right way to beat up a girl".

Anonymous

January 03, 2009 8:54 am

Too bad. He had that sound company that I used a while back. Was looking for him to see if he wanted to do some more work. Ah well.

200ok

January 03, 2009 6:54 pm

The sound business might still be around, I guess - all we know for absolute sure is the website's gone.

Anonymous

January 20, 2009 7:56 am

I'm glad to read that I am not alone in wondering what happened to Mark. I've had the honour of running three of his original stories in 2000 (http://con.ca/staff/14) and I found myself re-reading them every once in a while. His style and tone will be greatly missed.

Bottle Rocket Fire Alarm

March 17, 2009 9:46 pm

No luck, huh? I loved his writing and ordered Just Another Empire a few years back. I asked him to personalize it offensively for me, and he wrote on the the title page "Steve - Crucify The Retarded" Still got it. Come back Mark!

vee

May 19, 2009 3:34 pm

HERE DA BOY BE

http://www.seattleweekly.com/authors/mark-driver

200ok

May 19, 2009 11:39 pm

@vee - no updates since 2001 though, so I'm guessing he only wrote for them for a little while.

Chip

June 11, 2009 11:51 pm

Found this while trying to hunt the man down. It's all of his old stuff in one spot - something to tide everyone over until he shows back up.

http://blindwino.cyberphreak.com/?page_id=309

Andrew

July 09, 2009 3:20 am

Every now and then I search for Driver and I think I might have tracked him down. I haven't checked this out but I plan to try to email him and confirm. I found his twitter (this has officially convinced me of the usefulness of twitter)and then his blog on blogspot? I dunno, needs confirming!
http://twitter.com/MarkDriver
http://blindwino.wordpress.com/

Jazz nel pomeriggio

July 15, 2009 8:12 pm

Here he is, with a nice word for all of us affectionate fans

---

blindwino.wordpress.com

June 11

Eh. I’m remembering why I stopped doing this. It’s boring. And feels desperate. I mean, when I was broke, lonely, bored, and perpetually drunk, it made sense. I needed attention. Interaction. Something. Release valve #9 for the brain. But fuck. I’m happy as hell now. Who gives a shit about any of this? An hour of my day to entertain some cubicled mouthbreather for ten seconds? Temporary, transient, doomed. Like humanity.

Off to do some real writing…

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