About Me and This Website

About me

I was born in 1973 in Elgin, Illinois, during Watergate and just after US troops left Vietnam. I was raised in Hampshire, Illinois, where I went to school, rode my bike, and dreamed of being a Jedi, then a stuntman, then a writer.

I have a BA in English and Classics from the University of Iowa, where I met my wife, and an MA in Humanities from the University of Chicago.

I've worked in retail, newspapers, web development, and music performance. I'm now a high school English teacher and so grateful to be one.

I'm a traditional musician, playing banjo, guitar, harmonica, drums, and other folk instruments, specializing in old time and Cajun music. I'm married and have one daughter.

My brother is the composer and musician Gordon Bazsali, Jr.

About this website

I know this website is not exactly beautiful. It looks like something out of the last century.

I didn't make it like this out of nostalgia. (Well, not only.) I know how to use Google Sites and Squarespace. But I also know html and css, and I want to use them. This website is hand-coded and manually updated in the old-school way because I want complete control over it. And I like the simplicity of a plain text website you can read anywhere on anything and that is not dependent an any service or platform. It's a website that says "Look! I made this! For me and for you!"

The purpose of this website is to make for myself a place on the internet where people who know me or want to know me can go if they want to find out what I'm doing and how to find me. I don't use social media. I don't want to depend on a service or a platform. I don't want algorithms to mediate between me and you. Just a couple machines, a network, and a little honest, hand-written code. It's not as good as sitting with you in a bar, playing music with you, conferencing with you in my classroom, or running into you on the street. But it will have to do for now until we meet again!