It’s been a whirlwind few months here at New Ellijay Heavy Industries, and I’m thrilled to finally share what we’ve been working on. This weekend at the Designer Toy Art Festival in Philadelphia (August 9-10), we’re launching not just one project, but an entire ecosystem of interconnected stories and toys, all rooted in my love of pulp history, radical storytelling, and handcrafted design.

Terry Gene Bollea, better known as “Hulk” Hogan, was by all acounts a racist pig, a supporter of Fascism, and an all around asshole. He was also one of my childhood heroes, and I’m far from alone in that. He’s dead now, and I guess it is time to think about what it means to find out your heroes are monsters.

A good friend asked me for a list of my favorite books. I put some thought into it, and decided it should probably be a blogpost. I’m not going to do a ranked list, because I think that’s impossible Comparing some of the books on this list to one another just doesn’t make sense.

I launched a Cable Network. If you’re in the Ellijay Telephone Company coverage area, you can watch it on channel 176. If you’re not, you can watch it online or on roku (or even embedded on this post!) The whole thing is a Community Centered, local first production and broadcast, powered entirely by free software. Click through to watch the stream and learn more about how and why I built it.

I run a video store here in Ellijay called Cowabunga Video. We do sales and rental for used VHS, DVD, Bluray, etc. out of Mountain Town Antiques, and we sell new movies on VHS, DVD, and bluray through Hemlock Bazaar online and in store. We’re in the process of shooting a new show in partnership with New Ellijay Television called VHS IS THE FUTURE. Check out the teaser trailer: