 Paco Nathan, president of FringeWare, Inc. |
Farmers meet Virtual Reality on 42nd Street.” That’s one of the phrases Paco Nathan,
president of Fringeware, Inc., has used to describe an organization
indefinable; a kind of mind-bending retail outfit where shoppers try on
original thought for size along with counter-culture T-shirts. But the head
honcho himself is first to admit his definition isn’t quite as user-friendly as
it could be, precisely why FringeWare Review — a zine functioning as
just one part of the three-tiered business — carries the warning label, “We
are persistently difficult to explain to many people in your life…” For
instance, one issue of FringeWare Review might contain a compelling
article detailing Timothy Leary’s psychological analysis of human brain
activity, a piece of cyber-punk fiction, and a news story regarding proposed
legislation restricting the use of online BBSs — this all wrapped neatly in a
package containing some fake advertising (a little joke from the editors) and a
mail-order catalog selling everything from the interactive “MacJesus” game
(which, in the words of the game designer, gives you “an inside track when
dealing with the Creator of the Universe”) to less sophisticated sex games,
audio cassettes, and rubber stamps ready to ink all correspondence with the
message “I Grew Marijuana.”
Besides manufacturing and maintaining a certain mystique about his pet
company, Nathan is into the melding of real-time communities with the virtual
community of the Net, and, of course, the other parts of the project — a
website (http://
www.fringware.com), a retail space on Guadalupe (recently relocated from the
spot they shared with vintage store New Bohemia) which now functions as a
bookstore, and a tech-consulting business too. But it’s the thinktank aspect of
FringeWare that carries over into each of its parts, aiming to reach into the
next wave of information distribution on a grand lark. Herein lies the message
and it’s inherent disclaimer: FringeWare’s cyberbuzz is purposely left subject
to interpretation. And as Nathan’s seemingly nonsensical definition
illustrates, fringe dwellers seeking illumination would do best to maintain a
little cosmic humor.
Even fellow tech-culture scouts seeking out reality/cybereality gaps on a
daily basis get stuck on the prospect of categorizing FringeWare. David
Pescovitz, co-author of Reality Check (HardWired, 1996), a
compilation of essays from Wired‘s column of the same name and a contributing editor at the magazine bOING-bOING — a career path
similar to the one Nathan himself once trod — describes the collective more by
the characters involved than what they do. “For years, the FringeWare folks
have been reporting back from temporary autonomous zones where riot nrrds,
freaks, weird scientists, and other strange attractions run amok,” he says.
“But the best thing is that Paco and his colleagues don’t take a hoity
anthropological attitude and scribble notes from the sidelines. Instead,
they’re helping throw the party.”
And what a party it is. These modern day Merry Pranksters are taking
multi-media theory and applying it to the Net to create new forms of Real Time
communities where netizens can make up their own rules, eke out a living, and
have a little fun while they’re at it. Along the way, the purveyors of this
cyber-funk experiment drop jokes and metaphysical roadblocks to keep out those
who might have less than a passing interest in the ride, and to keep those
already riding the vibe on their toes.
Sort of.
MONDO-bOING and
the serendipity
of the
meta-organism
 |
computers since 1972, was then a contributing editor at bOING-bOING, a
zine with a special brand of humor — one part MAD Magazine and one part
WIRED. When bOING-bOING made a turn in priorities and started
working on publishing books, Nathan — who also had a computer consulting
business by then — began to focus his writing time primarily on MONDO
2000, a serious high-tech fashion magazine with a slant towards
cyber-cultures and the Rave. Investigating and writing about cyber-fringe
culture soon bred an interest in the newly allowed possibilities of the free
and open exchange of information allowed by the Internet. And late in 1992, in
the back of Europa Books on 24th & Guadalupe, the FringeWare company was
born as a small mail-order operation with a website and an e-mail list allowing
mass distribution of all types of fringe culture information to those who were
signed up on-line. “It was kind of a media collective,” Nathan says, recounting
the early ideas that drove the company into existence. “We saw a lot of changes
coming and wanted to take advantage of that. It was really about exploring new
media and selling things that we thought had fallen through the cracks, like
the brain machines and smaller publications.”
FringeWare still sells its fair share of products: alien-abduction ID cards,
conspiracy books, taboo religious materials like The Satanic Bible, as
well as hard-to-find foreign language books and works by literary giants of
the Beat Generation — Burroughs, Leary, and Kerouac. But FringeWare’s real
mission, first and foremost, is the dispensing of information. “Part of the
idea of FringeWare was to give a marketplace and venue to hard-to-find
material,” says Patrick Deese, owner and operator of the recently opened
FringeWare bookstore, “I mean, Barnes & Noble isn’t going to carry this
stuff.” Deese joined the troupe for real after years of minding the small pile
of mail-order materials in the back of Europa books where he worked as a
salesclerk, while Nathan banged away on the computer building the web page and
e-mail list.
And it was back during that time, when FringeWare’s first commercial space was
busy gathering hard-to-find, counter-culture consumer items for mail-order,
that the business as a whole — quite serendipitously — began attracting an
eclectic mix of participants inspired by FringeWare’s free-thinking maxim. In
what would be the first of a series of events that can’t be traced to any
certain training or skill but ended up shifting the focus of the company
profoundly, Nathan met Jim and Jamie Thompson at a local Electronic Frontiers
Foundation (EFF) meeting. The couple are part-owners themselves of Small Works,
a company which produces Internet security systems. In just a few months, as
the dynamics of FringeWare began to shift and when Jon Lebkowsky — an original
co-founder — left to pursue other endeavors in cyberspace, the Thompsons
became majority stockholders in FringeWare and began work on the tech side of
the business.
“For me it was an interesting group of people who were doing different things
with Internet technology than I had done, and my thought going into it was to
keep me on the edge,” says Jim Thompson. “I thought it was a way of maintaining
a newness and freshness, especially the weird tech world.”
As it was, a legal development in this weird tech world would soon explode the
company beyond the boundaries of the mail-order shop. The news-making arrest of
Steve Jackson, whose Austin-based gaming company was shut down by the Secret
Service, gave Nathan new insight into the possibilities and pitfalls of Net
culture. Serving as a local correspondent for national tech publications
including WIRED, Nathan the journalist kept readers up to date on
Jackson as he sued… and won… his case against the federal government.
Covering the controversial battle made Nathan a resident expert in the
confusing legal aspects of this new medium, and gave him an advantage in his
consulting business as well. “In 1992, having a website was like really weird,”
says Nathan. “I mean, doing business on the Internet, people were like, `Is
this even legal?'”
The current FringeWare team still wasn’t assembled by the time the 1993 SXSW
Music Conference rolled around, but the event would be responsible for bringing
another key convert to the fold, as well as a print publishing aspect to the
business. As a SXSW showcase organizer, Nathan was in charge of putting on a
multi-media presentation involving a Brain Machine, a device developed with
Japanese technology that was supposed to help people concentrate their energy
in an effort to make aliens among us reveal themselves (really it just gives
your head a little electric shock). Also scheduled to appear, as a more
tangible part of the showcase, was Dissemination Network (DIS-NET), an
industrial band from Denton, Texas who utilized giant television screens,
keyboards, tons of lights, and lots of media sampling in their performance.
“They sort of put all the techno-type bands in the one venue and called it a
Rave,” says Monte McCarter, then band member and photographer, who would soon
leave DIS-NET to become an integral part of the FringeWare staff. As a fan of
MONDO 2000, which Nathan was already involved with, the two tech-culture
heads hit it off immediately, and a few weeks later when Nathan was set to
cover RoboFest for MONDO, McCarter offered his photography services for
the article. As it happened, Nathan was getting ready to launch FringeWare
Review and he needed somebody to help out with the art. “I think I kind of
surprised him, I was the first person to apply for a job,” says McCarter, whose
home is aptly littered with old videotapes, keyboards, computer equipment, and
various samplings of art — all tools of the trade for a designer of a zine
aimed at the new media cyberculture.
In this fashion, these explorers of the fringe have managed to stumble across
each other, establishing the sensibility that has since guided the business; a
larger, driving force that pushes people into certain places, creates certain
circumstances. “I don’t really like to talk about it,” says Casey. “It’s like
if you define it, it might go away.”
Unsaid then, the members seem to agree that the mix and the method are
working fine. Each staffmember operates their side of the business in the way
that makes them happy; group board meetings are spontaneous and accidental.
Still looking for others experimenting with virtual communities, Nathan up and
took off in late ’93 and into ’94, criss-crossing the states from California to
New York. And that trip led him to meeting current FringeWare Review contributing editor Scotto, who at the time had hooked up with a group of drama
students at the University of Northern Iowa. LERI, as they called themselves
(named for the recently deceased acid guru), were an on-line psychedelic group
developing the “net trip” where people from around the country log on… turn
on… and wig out… firing messages back and forth to each other, expanding
their minds and searching for the meaning of life. Apparently, right up
FringeWare’s alley.
Sort of.
The Revolution Will
Not Be Televised
So last year, when the FringeWare bookstore finally moved into its own homenext to Mojo’s on Guadalupe, a collective sigh went out. The move established
permanency for the company — a concept that might seem contradictory to a
fringe philosophy of life. But if the group accepts anything, it’s the concept
of entropy. And now, after several years of hard work, getting their own space
is exciting and challenging for them. With $60,000 worth of books on the
shelves and 50-100 new titles being added on a monthly basis, the book retail
seems ripe for success.
“Any fool with a database can make a list of books,” says Deese. “We’re trying
to write reviews, scan in the covers and put in hyperlinks. In On the
Road, Kerouac uses a pseudonym for Neal Cassady, but you can type in Neal
Cassady [on the FringeWare webpage] and that book will come up.”
Any reservations FringeWare had about attracting customers to such a strange
storefront were quickly laid to rest as the kindred spirits came out of the
woodwork in droves. “The first month we were open, a guy came in and bought ten
books and was freaking out. It was our playlist. He was our target market,”
Deese says. The store itself, which serves as an outlet the average Joe can
understand, has enticed browsers to take a deeper look into the philosophy
FringeWare markets. “I don’t think there’s enough places that are putting
information out,” Deese says in the midst of one of his passionate rants about
the need for knowledge. “It’s like, `Hi, we sell chessboards and they are good’
— and that’s where I think we are winning. We’re attracting a lot of people
who don’t even know who we are, but they end up visiting our website.”
And the organization continues to gain popularity and credibility in print.
FringeWare Review, now boasting contributors such as R.U. Sirius, Erik
Davis, and Erika Whiteway, who spearhead special issues on everything from
feminism (issue #4) to chaos spirituality (#10), continues to bring its readers
together in a “D.I.Y. love fest” where they can learn to live — and conduct
business — in Net collectives.
So how does an alternative information peddler like FringeWare survive in the
mainstream? Aside from the bookstore, which is just beginning to turn a very
small profit, the organization also gets financial support from Nathan hitting
the lecture circuit around the world from Austria to Canada expousing his
cyberworld view. In addition, funds are amassed from the general computer
consulting work that he and other members of the company contract out. But all
the profits go into a big pot which is divied up among the different areas of
the business. Despite FringeWare’s successes, money remains a side product, the
means to an end to keep the idea going.
“It would have been kind of a detriment for FringeWare, Inc. to come off big
and make money,” Nathan says. “We had time to really figure out what people
wanted instead of us just doing what we liked. Besides, if we had made a
lot of money right off the bat, it would have been like a feeding frenzy [for
outside parties merely concerned with turning a profit].” That’s the happy
contradiction. FringeWare aims to make money, but not at the cost of
compromise.
“When people come to our site, they are coming for information,” Deese says.
“Yeah, we want to sell them stuff, but what they are really looking for is
information.”
FringeWare has created a place where anything goes, where they, as the
weirdest freaks of all, make it safe for alternative ideas to come together; a
place to get information from the closest source possible. “[FringeWare
provides] the notion of the temporary autonomous zone (TAZ) — an arena that
tries not to put too much of a spin on information,” says Deese’s assistant
Scott Casey, who has been involved with FringeWare since back in the Europa
days. “This is what [author and philosopher] Hakim Bey talks about. Immediacy.
Get right up there close to it and check it out. Don’t just trust what you hear
about something.”
So, the intrepid traveler daring enough to attempt to climb the mountain of
information the FringeWare folks have assembled in their zine, throughout their
bookstore, and on their web site — while remaining able to laugh at themselves
as they inevitably fumble along the electronic road — will be serving
FringeWare’s great experiment to get people thinking again, even if it means
hitting the edge of rationality. “There is so much that mediates between people
and real information that can give you power,” Casey says in one final
prophetic and philosophical muse. “[FringeWare] is a medium to disseminate the
most information with the least mediation.”
So wherever FringeWare is accessed — on the Net or in Real Space — we can be
sure that the new rules of chaos and information will be applied together in
search for truth. Individual truth. A Do-It-Yourself kind of truth.
And I think I get it..
Sort of.
Brad King is a recent Austin �migr� and freelance writer
whose work has appeared in Cincinnati City Beat, and the midwestern music
magazine, M00
This article appears in February 28 • 1997 and February 28 • 1997 (Cover).