It Could Happen To You.

The Gonzo Journals

March 3rd, 2023

The coffee is hitting a little differently this morning. Recent developments in my personal life have me living somewhere between high and low. I guess that would be in the middle, wouldn’t it? The middle is an extremely dangerous place. The slightest tweak in either direction can send you spinning out of control.

I won’t go into detail about what I’m going through because it’s my most personal of personal life and I’m not an attention whore/gossip queen. Anymore, I mean. I choose not to be one now because I know what it did to me in the past. It got me attention, actually. I wanted it then, but I don’t care for it now. I’m married to my biggest fan, so I no longer truly need anyone else’s attention. What I received is the bonus plan.

I know I’m not Stephen King – mostly because I know how to end a story – but being a public figure isn’t all peaches and cream. Your personal information could be easily Googled by anyone with half a tech brain and your work can bring you just as many haters as fans. Especially in the extreme genre. Do you think I’m being the above-mentioned drama queen now? Let me tell you a story…

I was asked never to speak about this publicly by my publisher, but he’s gone now. I feel as though this story could be helpful and a warning to fellow authors who’ve never heard of such nonsense. Sometimes nonsensical equals deadly.

It’s been four years now, and social media was doing what social media does. It was creating drama. Me and several of my colleagues were gearing up to have an anthology book release party at a local bar. Somehow, our content managed to offend someone, so they threatened on social media to murder us. Luckily, the book release was successful, and we treated this threat as yet another empty Facebook promise. We laughed about it regularly.

A couple of years ago, I, as well as my other colleagues, received a phone call from the FBI. Yes, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations, not Female Body Inspectors. What they said shocked me. While browsing the “dark web” they found that me and my fellow authors in this anthology indeed had a hit placed on us that was bought and paid for with crypto currency! What in the actual fuck! I guess it’s a good thing that crypto has been flopping left and right. The FBI just wanted to make sure we were all still alive and well. Alive, sure. Well? That was questionable. This was/is quite the mind job.

I think about what could have happened that night at the bar. I think about all the innocent people who came to celebrate with us who were ignorant to the potential threat which could’ve walked through that door at any second and killed us all. It’s not considered to be a ridiculous thought in this day and age. Mass shootings happen daily in this country for lesser reasoning.

I’m not trying to deter someone from playing the writing game, yet I’m sure few of you ever thought about how things could escalate to this degree by penning a simple story. There’s a lot of psychopaths out there, and they’ve multiplied exponentially since the invention of Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, etc. Privacy is an outdated concept.

Ultimately, this is why I’m locked and loaded with a concealed weapon most times when I leave the house. I truly hate that it all comes down to this, but some people in this country want to pretend it’s the wild west all over again. That’s the furthest thing from the truth. There was honor in the wild west, which is something today’s random idiot knows nothing about. Ten paces and turn is long gone. Now these wimps will walk up and shoot you in the back of the head out of cowardice.

Be careful what you put out to the public. Keep your personal life and your professional life at Bruce Wayne/Batman levels. I’m telling all my fellow writers and artists this right now for absolute free before they reach the point of an unexpected FBI phone call. For the record, once you split the cash between all who were involved, my life was only worth about $500. Hell, I’ll pay someone that to go the fuck away and kill someone else of my choosing. I hear Vladimir Putin has been a naughty boy…

Peace.