Phantom Watson profile picture

Phantom Watson

I am here for Dating, Friends and Networking

About Me


The PhanCam, located in my treehouse/office in
Doc's Music Hall
Have you checked out Ether yet? TheEther.info Cognitive orgy. All night long.
Here's a big stupid list about me, because it's easier to read than a big, stupid paragraph about me.
    Homeless, backpack-toting, urban-exploring, concert-running, dumpster-diving, community-work-doing, webmastering, computer programming, vegetarian, Buddhist, Taoist, Ball State computer science ex-studentCommunity stuff:Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Full Circle Arts Co-op Operations Manager and Code Monkey for Doc's Music Hall Co-organizer and emcee of Muncie MusicFest Organizer of Yart '06 and '07 (art sale/festival) Organizer for The Concert From Hell (series of bigass annual Halloween shows; Voltaire headlined the CFH3 ) Co-organizer for Mother of All Shows series Midwest Music Summit advisory board / code monkey Food Not Bombs (Muncie and Anderson chapters) And a bazillion random concerts and art events all over the place
Web stuff:
    Ether (an experiment in collaborative introspection / cognitive gangbang) My Dimly Lit Corner TheMuncieScene.com BSU Student Government Association Midwest Music Summit (back-end contribution) Folly Moon Music Doc's Music Hall Full Circle Arts Co-op Muncie MusicFest
Ball State stuff:
    BSU Student Government AssociationExecutive Council (Secretary of Information) Community & Environmental Affairs Blood Drive committee
BSU Campus Activities Fund Board BSU Google Team Ball State University Senate
    Campus Council Student Rights, Ethics, and Standards committee Creative Arts committee Information Technology committee Traffic Appeals subcommittee
Student Groups
    BSU Student Art Development (president) BSU Freethought Alliance Body Modification Community Feminists For Action Students For A Democratic Society
Am I an artist too?
    Actor (up until college, anyway) Photographer Writer Cook Dabbling musician, singer, sketch artist, painter VERDICT: You're ALMOST an artist, Phantom!
Plans for the future
    Help get the Full Circle Arts Co-op fully off the ground and restart the old Creative Opportunity Center (all-ages venue and community center) in the second floor of Doc's Music Hall Get my doctorate in computer science Start teaching in a city with a decent art/music scene Continue promoting and working with the scene Continue doing web application work for the regional music industry Find time to develop my own visual and performance art Use my mad contacts to start touring on the side as a performer Develop projects like Ether like mad and start an online community of avant-garde artistic community-working programmers File a frivolous but high-profile civil suit against NASA and be given Saturn in an out-of-court settlement Live out my years as a crazy old man on Saturn that runs a quaint bed and breakfast for space tourists

Now here's a big, stupid paragraph about me. Congratulations for finding it.
I do a chameleon act across the goth, hippie, nerd, activist, and indie rocker subcultures. I've been accused of being an indie rocker groupie and bipolar. I'm versed in the masochistic arts and have done scarification artwork on myself and others in the past. I drink far too much Mountain Dew and like mixing it with Tanqueray. Steve Geraci and I call that 'Tanka-dew'. I've always been the showman and I've always been organizing ambitious projects since I was a little kid. If I live long enough, I might actually finish one. I've dabbled in everything artistic not requiring special equipment and I hesitate to explore art any further because of the brilliantly artistic friends that I've recently come upon. My trenchcoat is full of extra pockets that I've sewed into it and I pretty literally live out of it and have come to think of it as my cozy, portable single-bedroom house. I usually sleep in a food court or library on campus, but I sometimes sleep in hallways or classrooms or friend's floors and couches. I've done a lot of research into Carroll's Alice books so I'd always be able to easily do research projects on a subject that interested me in English classes. I leave notes around campus. I go looking for adventure and explore places and things that I'm not supposed to. Sometimes I get arrested and feel bad. I dumpster-dive for food for myself and other friends and hungry people. I hang out with musicians, but I'm not a musician. I'd hang out with computer programmers, but it's hard to find someone to have a good conversation about programming with. I've been working on a computer-based art project called Snooze for at least four years. Literal blood, sweat, and tears have gone into it, someone nearly died to help me make part of it, and it's not even halfway done yet. I'd like to finish it. I want to change the world just because I can. I want to do good for people because it's more difficult than wrecking things and causing pain.
I'd tell you a story, but they close this place and kick everyone out in about five minutes. We'll have to find someplace else to talk. Erick says it's about me Well he once killed a man with a guitar string
He's been seen at the table with kings
Well he once saved a baby from drowning
There are those who say beneath his coat there are wings
Some say they fear him
Others admire him
Because he steals his promise
One look in his eye
Everyone denies
Ever having met him
Ever having met him He can turn himself into a stranger
Well they broke a lot of canes on his hide
he was born away in a cornfield
A fever beats in his head like a drum inside
Some say they fear him
Others admire him
Because he steals his promise
One look in his eye
Everyone denies
Ever having met him
Ever having met him

My Interests

    Cognitive science Philosophy Buddhism Taoism Existentialism Transhumanism
Social engineering Technology Programming Exploring the artistic frontiers of programming, the internet, and digital human interaction The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence Body modification
    Scarification Suspension Dreadlocks
Painting Salvia Divinorum Writing
    Victorian Shakespeare
Politics
    Radical Progressive Liberal
Activism Social work Travel abroad Nethack Music
    Indie Electronica Industrial Folk
Hacking
    Clothing Sociopolitical Technological
Meditation Anthropology Vegetarianism

I'd like to meet:

    Other promoters and artists who would like to collaborate on and/or help me with community projects, events, festivals, etc. People interested in body modification performance art, who would like to help me develop a body mod stage show Computer programmers who want to work on exciting community-driven online projects People to introduce me to their own art and music Strangers Partners in adventure Companions in discovery Patrons of the arts Socially and politically minded philosophers Someone to meet up with to go do something exciting and fulfilling RIGHT NOW Courteous, chivalrous, respectful people who know whom not to take shit from Peaceful troublemakers Mischievous brainstormers People to collaborate on in art, community work, and criminal mischief People to talk with all night while I exploit their kitchen to make vegan stir-fry and then let me crash on their floor after a few drinks Honestly? ... Girls.

Music:

Anything that one can either meditate or have sex to. Any other music was clearly made as some sort of terrible accident, and/or insult to humanity.
LOCAL-ISH
Eric Alexander, Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos, Big Big Car, Everthus the Deadbeats, "Everything, Now!", Calibretto, Harley Poe, Killjoy Confetti, Monster Pagan Death Ride, Days and Nights in the Skeleton Crew, Life After Bed, Revel in the Morning, Arrah and the Ferns, Epoch Inversion
NOT QUITE AS LOCAL
Voltaire, Tom Waits, Bjork, Cocorosie, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, The Decemberists, Dead Prez, Jurassic 5, Page France, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, A Silver Mount Zion, Bad Religion, Beastie Boys, Bright Eyes, Rilo Kiley, David Bowie, Flogging Molly, Marilyn Manson, Mindless Self-Indulgence, Zeromancer, Neutral Milk Hotel, Portishead, Primus, Prince, Radiohead, Rammstein, REM, Riot Folk, Sufjan Stevens, Tanakh

Movies:

Titus (w/ Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange, directed by Julie Taymor); Waking Life (directed by Richard Linklater); a great many old horror movies, the campier the better; a great many old and corny or new and flashy martial arts movies; Mel Brooks movies; Wes Anderson movies; old black-and-white MGM movies from the 1940s and 50s like Arsenic and Old Lace

Television:

Mystery Science Theatre 3000; Adult Swim; Criss Angel; Wonder Showzen; intriguing Discovery/History/Learning channel specials

Books:

Authors: Noam Chomsky, Lewis Carroll, Patrick Harvey, Stephen Hawking, Tenzin Gyatso
Books: Evasion (CrimethInc Press), Tao Te Ching, other assorted Taoism and Buddhism books, Link Boy (Matt James), the Dune series, Ishmael
Other: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac (Jhonen Vasquez)
I read a lot of scientific journals too, which are harder to quickly sum up. Suffice it to say that if there's anything new being published about transhumanism, cognitive science, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, programming in general, psychology, or anthropology, I'll probably be reading it.

Heroes:

Tenzin Gyatso, Thich Nhat Hanh, Siddarth Gautama, Lao Tzu, Lewis Carroll, Stephen Hawking, Patrick Harvey, Matthew James, Erick Sherman

My Blog

Phantomland Update

Silly MySpace blogs...Here's what's been up with me, for the people that would like to keep up on me-trivia:"Manager" Phantom? - I'm now the operations manager of Doc's Music Hall. It's a pay raise, p...
Posted by Phantom Watson on Tue, 31 Jul 2007 12:21:00 PST

Transylvania Debriefing

Day 1: Flight in and Brasov                  I was supposed to get a call from Lacy Meyer and crash at the Deadbeats' house th...
Posted by Phantom Watson on Mon, 18 Jun 2007 07:08:00 PST

News From Phantomland - Dec 2006

Some updates on the life of Graham "Phantard" Watson.In the span of a couple months, I went from not really hanging out at Doc's, to being an occasional patron, to having an office there and setting u...
Posted by Phantom Watson on Sat, 30 Dec 2006 12:51:00 PST

Voltaire / Birthday / Concert From Hell Debriefing

The Concert From Hell IIIIf it weren't for a week of terrible luck leading up to the concert, it would have been the most extravagant event I've thrown. As it turned out, it ended up tying with a few...
Posted by Phantom Watson on Sat, 09 Dec 2006 10:00:00 PST

Horowitz Debriefing

Ball State Daily News article TheMuncieScene.com forum threadStar Press article Alright, I've barely slept since the incident because I've been running around with others helping out Grace and Cassan...
Posted by Phantom Watson on Thu, 09 Nov 2006 12:22:00 PST

Halloween Bacchanalia debriefing

My busy weekend went even better than planned.Friday!"Hot Carl" Smith accompanied me to Indianapolis to see Central State, a documentary about investigations of a haunted insane asylum. The documentar...
Posted by Phantom Watson on Mon, 30 Oct 2006 10:57:00 PST

I only do one dumb survey a year.

Or maybe two or three. But I think I'm removed enough from the bulletin whores to not feel awful for helping pollute the MySpace bulletin stream with useless, self-indulgent crap. And now some useles...
Posted by Phantom Watson on Mon, 30 Oct 2006 09:15:00 PST

Eroticon Debriefing and News From Phantomland

Eroticon '06:Holy shit.Holy living shit.Were you there? Goddamn.Go next time.Big ol' mugs full of Long Island ice tea, smokey in de alley, good music, good company, gorgeous eye candy all around, and ...
Posted by Phantom Watson on Sun, 22 Oct 2006 05:20:00 PST

Yart '06 Debriefing

I could not be happier with how Yart '06 turned out. The crowd peaked at a respectable hundred or so people, and every minute had an overwhelming happy, fun, uplifting vibe to it. Right now, I'm going...
Posted by Phantom Watson on Sun, 08 Oct 2006 12:42:00 PST

Rock n Roll Freakshow debriefing

The Rock n Roll Freakshow concert last night went well. Brazil and Lola Ray had dazzling sets alongside Freakshow Foley's consistently impressive antics.Pain Tribe has been performing as part of the F...
Posted by Phantom Watson on Mon, 11 Sep 2006 10:48:00 PST