I was born the son of a sharecropper in Alabama in 1929.

No, wait. That was George Jefferson.

Regardless, if you’re here, that means that you give a shit about who’s doing this stuff. And to those people, I say this: hi, Mom!

But seriously, folks, I’m just a guy who lives in the middle of America whose heart is still in the South, I spent the first twentysomething years of my life in Arkansas (which is why you’ll find on the pages herein many a Razorback reference–not to mention the seasoned angst that comes with rooting for a team whose last football championship was during the Johnson Administration).

After getting a degree in Words, I moved to the Big Easy to get my graduate degree in More Words. They say that New Orleans swings people one way or the other: you love it or hate it. Tony Bennett’s heart may be in San Francisco, but I think mine is somewhere on Royal Street underneath the sunroasted mush of yacked-up Pat O’Brien Hurricane and half-eaten Lucky Dogs.

Realizing I couldn’t make a living in New Orleans unless I served drinks, danced naked, or did both, I moved to higher ground out of necessity, a fear of poking-out patrons’ eyes with my wang, and a visceral fear of hurricanes. That’s not 20/20 hindsight, either, as the first month I lived in NO, I was hit with a hurricane evac scare (you can read all about it here), but I’d heard the what-if horror stories, lived in an area well below sea-level, so I moved.

Now I’m in the middle of America and living amongst the commonfolk.  You people creep me out.  So if you’re from Wizard or Toyfare and you’re reading this and want me to do some freelance feature-writing work for you, freaking e-mail me.

Hey, Swass!  Why “swass?”

What’s a “Swass,” you ask?  Well, it’s not much.  Yes, it has the word “ass” in it, which sets off the alarms of some overly-twitchy and highly squeamish filters, but it has nothing to do with ass.  Well, it kind of does.  In a Sir-Mix-A-Lot sort of way.  See, long before Sir Mix sold all of his artistic integrity and started rapping about Spongebob Squarepants’ ass, he rapped about women’s asses.  And he’s the one who popularized the usage of the word “swass.”  For instance, go illegally download check out iTunes for a copy of  the album “Swass” and its titular (lol…I just typed “tit”) track.  There, you’ll find out that “swass” actually stands for “Some Wild Ass Silly Shit.”  Brilliant, no?

No. Not at all. That’s kind of the point. I needed a handle for my Internet dealings, and high school buddies of mine often joked about the word “swass” and how it was an ultimate failure at trying to make a word for something cool or awesome and yet it failed miserably (also see “jiggy” and “crunk;” I don’t care what you say–the last is just “swass” in stupid clothes).  So there you have it: my name is self-parody, in a way: something that tries hard to be awesome, yet fails miserably.  When I aim, I aim high, you bastards.

Hey, Swass! Why the fuck do you use so much profanity and shit? It totally fucking offends me!

All right parents, go ‘head tuck, the kids in. PG time is over. This goes out to all the macks in the industry.

Here’s your warning. This site does NOT contain mind-corrupting full-page spreads of donkey-sex, instructions to make thermite, or links to Ann Coulter books. What it does have is a whole lot o’write-ups that contain an occasional sprinkling of profanity, references to adult material (you know like double-ended dildos, snuff flicks, boobs, W-9 tax forms), and an irreverence for religious and politcal beliefs.  I kept it to a minimum on the old swassdesign.com, but on the new one, I’m treating this like a ThighMaster to get my essay muscles back into shape.

So why the potty-mouth? For me, profanity makes talking fun. If you have a problem with it, please turn back, because here there be motherf’ing dragons.

And that’s the last time I censor myself or mince an oath (well, maybe later for comedic effect). I understand that people have issues with language, and I’m respecting that by putting up this signpost. But don’t fret. It’s not like I have a Tourette’s-like explosion on every single page. I try to use it judiciously, either for the sake of humor or emphasis. Usually humor. Fuckbucket.  See?  Warned you.  If that offended you, I gave you ample warning.

Essentially, much of this site is a gallery, a container of images of me expressing my interests, things that I like on a visceral level. And I can think of no clearer denial of me, of who I am, than to write in an inauthentic voice that sounds nothing like I talk or think in my day-to-day life. This is my corner of cyberspace, my language. And I love that.

So before I get any complaints that swearing has no place on a toy site, let me say to those people: you’re absolutely right. But this ain’t no toy site, I ain’t in in this for your revolution, and I ain’t in this for you, Princess. Customizing is an adult hobby. At least it should be. Trust me, I’ve burned myself chemically, sliced off enough flesh to star in my home production of The Merchant of Venice, and superglued more vital bodyparts than…well, someone who does that a lot.  And thinking–which is what essay-writing is to me–is about expressing thoughts.  And sometimes those thoughts are pruirient, puerile, or just plain profane.  That’s my brain.

But for those of you whose virgin eyes and ears can handle it, or for those who “get” that their self-important piousness and sanctimoniousness are irrelevant to me, I hope you enjoy the site–take a look around, and I hope you enjoy the figures, their write-ups, and the essays just as much as I do.