The last article I wrote/published was my Danelectro Red Hot Longhorn review… in August, 2024. As of this writing it’s February, 2026. A year and a half. Or 18 months. Whatever. The last two years, nay, the last five, have more or less made me… hmm, what to call myself? A former idealistic dreamer and eternal optimist that’s become an apathetic, bitter cycnic two steps shy of nihilism. Far too often I’ve thought about this site of mine, and the whole damned world for that matter, and wondered… Why bother?
In September, 2018 my wife told me she wanted me to be happy and encouraged me to follow my gifts, passions, whatever we’re calling them, and to get back into music and writing full-time. I was caught in the trap of sales and service. Oh sure, I was almost always in management but I wanted out. My credentials are in HR but I was always stuck in sales and service. She told me to quit my job and get back into the arts. So I did. The former. The latter isn’t working out so well.
Through 2019 I made a few posts and a few plans, teased this, tweaked that and in 2020 relaunched Winterwind. It was me and two other blokes. It wasn’t daily content, it was mostly monthly, but enough. By the start of 2021 well, those other two lads fell by the wayside and my life, minus my marriage, went to shit.
What about the music?
I’ve been writing songs and playing a variety of instruments since I was a kid. With my wife’s blessing I bought the gear I needed and built a humble home studio. I was a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist but didn’t know much about mixing and mastering so I had to teach myself the basics.
In Early 2021 I recorded a half a dozen tracks and set about learning “the other side of the board”. I did everything in one take because the tracks were just for learning how to mix and master. I got enough of an idea to feel confident so I registered the copyrights with CIPO and the songs with SOCAN and was ready to re-record and start releasing music.
Then it started going south. And it kept going south. And spiralled.
At the start of 2021 my luthier, the guy I’d trusted with my gear for over 20 years, moved back east to the Maritimes. My Hofner bass needed some minor work. In the spring of 2021 I (foolishly) trusted a tech at Long and McQuade. He killed it.
Then I took my LTD Gretsch Penguin to a different tech. He screwed up the nut and wrecked a custom made Tru-Arc bridge. Then I took my Penguin, my trusty old Sheraton and my acoustic, my first guitar, my oldest, dearest confidant and friend, to another guy. A guy that was supposed to be a luthier and was even listed on the Gretsch site as an authorised service centre. He buggered all three. So… I had no bass and my three main guitars were all out of the game.
It wasn’t until late 2023 that my wife, my amazing, loving, wonderful and bloody brilliant wife, found a luthier here in town that I’d never heard of. Her search engine powers somehow surpassed mine and she found this guy. I had nothing to lose. I gave him a ring. He’s beyond brilliant. Jovan is the best luthier I’ve ever met. All my gear is good again. Better than brand new.
But that still put me two and a half years behind. Hell, it’s almost five years now.
What about the writing?
I started so many articles in the last few years that I never finished. A review of the Supro Delta King 12 that I bought (and then traded). A review of the LTD Vox AC10 I traded that Supro for. And I started a review of my Gretsch Vintage Select Tennessee Rose (that I love almost as much as my wife). And a dozen other articles, reviews and pop culture pieces that I never finished.
Winterwind is, or is supposed to be, music, writing and videos. Music was out for want of a luthier for a while but I still had writing and videos. Two outta three ain’t bad, yeah?
But the motivation wasn’t there. And where would I promote it if I did write anything?
I was never big on social media (although I certainly spent my time on various phpBB forums back in the internet’s glory days). I only used Facebook and Twitter for promoting Winterwind. In fact I only joined them for Winterwind and if I didn’t have a website I wouldn’t be on either. Facebook became a bunch of bullshit in your feed that you didn’t ask for and Twitter became whatever it is now and “pay to play” on top of that.
What about the videos?
So, there’s that. The above. Then there’s image.
Personally, my life… Well glossing over quickly, I was a Crown Ward. Childhood was beyond unpleasant for me and I am/was part of a couple of class action lawsuits against the Ontario government and its agencies for what they did to me. I was horrifically abused as a child and was homeless and living on the streets at 16.
I had to write statements and swear affadavits and relive all that shit. Hooray for PTSD. That fucked me up for a while. In 2022 I went from a very fit, very healthy fighting trim of 6’2″ and 215lbs down to 155lbs. That is not healthy. I looked like hell. My poor wife was worried sick. And my doctor was worried too.
And when the settlement cheque came in early 2023 the amount was so insulting considering what happened to me as a Crown Ward that it wasn’t worth it. I honestly wish I’ve never heard about the class action lawsuits. I’d put it all behind me. Then I had to relive it all. For a pittance.
Not only was my weight down but my hair, my beautiful blonde, unruly curls were butchered. That was another article I never wrote. How in my entire life, pre-Covid, I had only one bad haircut and not one good one since. Since the lifting of the lockdowns in 2021 until now I’ve tried over a dozen different stylists and half a dozen barbers and the best was “not as bad as the last one” and the worst… Well, in the last few years I’ve come home four times, looked in the mirror, cursed a blue streak, slapped on the #3 clipper guard, shaved my head and started over again.
Skinny as fuck and sporting a shaved head isn’t a good look unless you’re playing a PoW in a war film.
So much for all my motivation for anything. I had written sketches for my Hot Karl and Johnny Festering videos and I just needed to perfect the accents I would use for both characters but I just didn’t care. I wasn’t able to make my music and I wasn’t in the mood to write. And I sure as hell wasn’t feeling funny.
And I haven’t even gotten to the AI bullshit yet.
Fuck AI and the horse it rode in on…
Prior to AI being unleashed upon the world my humble site was averaging 1000 unique readers a month. Not too shabby considering I wasn’t writing daily or weekly pieces. Hell, I was barely writing monthly articles but my gear reviews ranked highly in search results and I got good traffic.
Well, AI overviews came along in the summer of 2024 and the AI slop quickly followed. I’ve lost about 80% of my traffic and ad revenue because of that and simply had no desire to do a damned thing with Winterwind. Seriously, why bother?
Does AI have its uses? Sure. But in a very narrow, extremely limited way. Actually all AI does for me is show me how greedy the 1% are and how utterly fucking stupid the majority of humans are.
And it’s not just the damned overviews taking traffic from websites. Or the companies that steal from artists of all genres by training their AI on the respective artist’s work. There’s also the bullshit AI bot traffic flooding sites, eating up bandwidth, taking sites down temporarily because the servers can’t handle the load.
This crap started in October, 2025 and went for about a month. On my site, it peaked around 7K “users”, all with 0 seconds engagement and all apparently from China. People wrote articles. People posted on Reddit. Google was “aware” and would take steps to address all the bullshit flooding their GA4 reports. Then it went away.
At the end of January, 2026 it was back with a bloody vengeance. Boy howdy, was it ever! From January 28th, 2026 until this writing, today, February 19th, 2026… 77K bullshit bots hitting my site. And they’re not all showing as from China anymore. They also show as coming from the UK, the US, Germany… and they’re almost all going to pages on my site that doesn’t even exist. The URLs showing are for the old WW phpBB forums which I deleted years ago. Seriously, what the fuck is the point? Beyond wasting energy, wrecking the Earth and letting the AI tech bro asshats circle jerk each other and their investors, what is the bloody point?
So… Why bother?
So why am I writing this? Well, for one thing I pay for hosting and for pro versions of a few plugins so I may as well do something with what I’m paying for. But also, in December 2025 something happened. Something that made me laugh uncontrollably. And it inspired me. There was a wee bit of schadenfreude too. Hofner filed for bankruptcy.
Bwahahahahaha!
If you read my reviews of the German Hofner and two Chinese models I bought and returned in 2023 and 2024 when trying to replace the one that idiot tech killed you’d understand why I laughed. And laughed. And laughed some more.
That’s what inspired me again.
Oh, and my newfound hatred for Fender/FMIC, And the really sweet Rickenbacker 620 my wife told me I should treat myself to. So I guess I’ve got some articles I need to write. And I’m back up to a buck eighty aka 180lbs. Still haven’t found a decent stylist or barber so no videos for me but I can make music and write again. Two outta three, baby!
I blame Star Trek for that.
(Star Trek 1966-2005 RIP)
- Why Bother? - February 19, 2026
- Danelectro Red Hot Longhorn Review - August 22, 2024
- Hofner Contemporary Bass Review - March 6, 2024
