Jonathan D. Parks
OUTPOST1000 with
Jonathan D. Parks
via facebook chat
November 2015
OUTPOST1000 Hi Jonathan, A few years ago a friend of mine who lives in Kentucky gave me a CD with packet material that you created. The packaging contains lots of Xeroxed texts which you wrote. I have a program called OUTPOST1000 and would like to exhibit the texts that you included in the CD case. The exhibit would include the actual CD and the Xeroxed papers I mention. If you are interested in this I would like to conduct a short interview with you via facebook chat if that is ok. Thank you for creating such interesting and thoughtful work.
Jonathan No problem. Yes, I think it would be great if you would share them in a display. Unfortunately, I do not make the Xeroxes anymore, as they were a lot of work to make multiple copies of, as well as something that businesses would not allow me distribute as they consider it soliciting. I do however have websites up now where I display jpeg scans of the original articles, and the articles are called "Aspie Trax" as you may have seen written on them. The Aspie Trax website is now www.aspietrax.webs.com. I have set it up where the articles can be downloaded by way of dragging the pictures from the computer screen.
Chat Conversation End
OUTPOST1000 Thank you Jonathan, I really like the way you laid out your Xeroxes, they are very beautiful and interesting visually. I also like the advocacy messages around Autistic issues. I'll try to set up a small exhibit of your work within the next month and prior to that I will send you some questions that you can answer if you want. I will include the questions and your answers as a part of the exhibit. Thank you!
Jonathan No Problem. Yes, I think it would be great if you could share them in a display. Unfortunately, I do not make the Xeroxes anymore, as they were a lot of work to make multiple copies of as well as something that businesses would not allow me to distribute as they consider it soliciting. I do however have up now where I display jpeg scans of the original articles, and the articles called “Aspie Trax” as you may have seen written on them. The Aspie Trax website is now www.aspietrax.webs.com I have set it up where the articles can be downloaded.
Chat Conversation End
OUTPOST1000 Hi Jonathan, Ok I’m doing a pop up art exhibit of your work as mentioned. Do you mind answering a couple of questions? If you are ok with that- here we go:
It is noticeable that you are a real advocate for those with Asperger’s Syndrome, can you discuss why?
Jonathan There are lots of reasons. One place where it began, was when I was working on a certain job that I had in my early twenties. There were many difficulties about the job, which started with the fact that people couldn’t understand my inability to concentrate, where most people had the ability. I felt in those days like asthma, diabetes, arthritis and things like that were understood in my particular workplace, and Asperger’s was not. The longer I was there, the worse it got, and I even ended up working with a guy whose life was so personal that I could not tell you about it, but that contributed to the fact that he would make me his target because I had a disability. He would say degrading things to me, not only because he could not understand, but if I told him the reality of things, would not be convinced. So I begin to put stuff out there so that aspies can live in just as much a world of understanding as normal thinking people can.
Also, around the time this was happening, I started going to the book store and picking up books to read that told the stories in detail about Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. I have learned since then just how much difference there is in what I am able to do and what they could do, but the fact that they spoke up and defended rights of people really inspired me to do likewise for people like me.
OUTPOST1000 You are an Ordained Minister of the Universal Life Church. Why is this important to you?
Jonathan That was actually an ordination certificate that I purchased by sending $10 to Universal Ministries. It was not other ordination certificates, which are received by way of theological questioning. I come from a family of ministers, which include my father, both of my late grandfathers and even a couple of uncles who are my father’s brothers. A cousin of mine who is the son of one of these brothers also recently became one, but ministry has been a family tradition to me and a calling to many of my family members. I decided that getting myself somehow ordained would make me able to be some sort of official minister even if it is just an evangelist.
OUTPOST1000 Do you see your ministry as a part of your outreach to those with Asperger’s?
Jonathan Yes, I do see it as a part of that. The music ministry however started years before the outreach for Asperger’s did. I started the music ministry in 1999, at the age of 19 and going on 20. I started the Asperger’s outreach in the earliest part of 2004, at the age of 23 and going on 24. At that time I was handing out cassette tapes and audio CDs of the music I had recorded at the time, and placing my mission pledge to help others understand those with Asperger’s on the leaflets of the CDs and cassettes.
OUTPOST1000 I note that you are not creating Xeroxes anymore, due to their costs, but did how did you compose them?
Jonathan I would type the articles out on the computer, by making word documents in which I would shape out the boxes and type in the words using each little box as it’s own page. Then, I would draw pictures into the front cover box of each article, and make 2 sided Xeroxes in a way that you could make them into a fold-up pamphlet.
Once I started to get enough pamphlets, then I would take Xeroxes of the original articles, cut them and paste them together into a collage, and each collage would become its own edition of Aspie Trax. Since my father is a pastor of a church and has his own Xerox machine, I could make multiple Xeroxes from his copier to pass around.
The church has always paid for the paper in the copier, but since they knew I had a legitimate mission in using the paper, they didn’t mind me making copies from it, and my father didn’t either. However, it is more convenient and less work to just post jpeg scans of the articles on the internet for download, so I make it where they can be downloaded from the internet as it can even go around the world that way.
OUTPOST1000 Is the layout important or is it more a thing of compressing as much information into a small space as possible?
Jonathan It’s really a matter of both of those things. I would try to get it into as small a space as possible, so I could have less work to do as far as the signing and folding goes. I could also use less paper by putting all the articles together into one sheet per edition, and making multiple copies of just as many sheets as there were editions of Aspie Trax. It was also my father’s suggestion when he saw me copying, cutting and folding multiple copies of individualized articles. I noticed myself that I was able to get a little more done a whole lot faster by combining the editions each to their own sheets.
OUTPOST Anything at all you would like to add?
Jonathan Yes, I would also like to add that I have hobbies such as woodcarving and woodworking. In a future display I may hope to show some of that art. I also like to take old pairs of jeans, and cut up the scraps into shapes of a certain pattern, which I will often hand sew together into making stuffed animals and pillows.
I have also had a history of taking my mp3 CDs and my Xeroxes of Aspie Trax out into a ministry for the homeless, which meets downtown every Sunday in my own hometown. Although I do not attend that ministry anymore, part of the reputation I made for my own ministry was for sharing the work out there with the homeless and also with the ministers and members of other affiliated churches.
Another thing I have done in the past was taking my ministry to the bars and the local restaurants, where I would share CDs and Aspie Trax articles with bartenders, servers and even other guests that I was having conversations with. There have been some businesses which have considered this to be the same as soliciting, and the managers of my hometown locations, under the responsibilities given to them by their corporate owners, have not been able to allow me to continue handing it out in their place of business, even as much as many of them have appreciated my motives and intentions in doing so
Moreover, I would like to say that the mission is not over. There still continues to be people in the grocery stores, fast food restaurants, and craft stores where I go to eat and shop, who receive the information and it fascinates them.
More people are becoming newly interested people each day, and the reputation continues to grow, even though being so much as a public figure or a big name does not become the case, and may never be. That is okay though, because the fact that I am making something of this world that is still going to last after I am no longer around is the most important thing.
www.aspietrax.webs.com
Jonathan D. Parks
via facebook chat
November 2015
OUTPOST1000 Hi Jonathan, A few years ago a friend of mine who lives in Kentucky gave me a CD with packet material that you created. The packaging contains lots of Xeroxed texts which you wrote. I have a program called OUTPOST1000 and would like to exhibit the texts that you included in the CD case. The exhibit would include the actual CD and the Xeroxed papers I mention. If you are interested in this I would like to conduct a short interview with you via facebook chat if that is ok. Thank you for creating such interesting and thoughtful work.
Jonathan No problem. Yes, I think it would be great if you would share them in a display. Unfortunately, I do not make the Xeroxes anymore, as they were a lot of work to make multiple copies of, as well as something that businesses would not allow me distribute as they consider it soliciting. I do however have websites up now where I display jpeg scans of the original articles, and the articles are called "Aspie Trax" as you may have seen written on them. The Aspie Trax website is now www.aspietrax.webs.com. I have set it up where the articles can be downloaded by way of dragging the pictures from the computer screen.
Chat Conversation End
OUTPOST1000 Thank you Jonathan, I really like the way you laid out your Xeroxes, they are very beautiful and interesting visually. I also like the advocacy messages around Autistic issues. I'll try to set up a small exhibit of your work within the next month and prior to that I will send you some questions that you can answer if you want. I will include the questions and your answers as a part of the exhibit. Thank you!
Jonathan No Problem. Yes, I think it would be great if you could share them in a display. Unfortunately, I do not make the Xeroxes anymore, as they were a lot of work to make multiple copies of as well as something that businesses would not allow me to distribute as they consider it soliciting. I do however have up now where I display jpeg scans of the original articles, and the articles called “Aspie Trax” as you may have seen written on them. The Aspie Trax website is now www.aspietrax.webs.com I have set it up where the articles can be downloaded.
Chat Conversation End
OUTPOST1000 Hi Jonathan, Ok I’m doing a pop up art exhibit of your work as mentioned. Do you mind answering a couple of questions? If you are ok with that- here we go:
It is noticeable that you are a real advocate for those with Asperger’s Syndrome, can you discuss why?
Jonathan There are lots of reasons. One place where it began, was when I was working on a certain job that I had in my early twenties. There were many difficulties about the job, which started with the fact that people couldn’t understand my inability to concentrate, where most people had the ability. I felt in those days like asthma, diabetes, arthritis and things like that were understood in my particular workplace, and Asperger’s was not. The longer I was there, the worse it got, and I even ended up working with a guy whose life was so personal that I could not tell you about it, but that contributed to the fact that he would make me his target because I had a disability. He would say degrading things to me, not only because he could not understand, but if I told him the reality of things, would not be convinced. So I begin to put stuff out there so that aspies can live in just as much a world of understanding as normal thinking people can.
Also, around the time this was happening, I started going to the book store and picking up books to read that told the stories in detail about Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. I have learned since then just how much difference there is in what I am able to do and what they could do, but the fact that they spoke up and defended rights of people really inspired me to do likewise for people like me.
OUTPOST1000 You are an Ordained Minister of the Universal Life Church. Why is this important to you?
Jonathan That was actually an ordination certificate that I purchased by sending $10 to Universal Ministries. It was not other ordination certificates, which are received by way of theological questioning. I come from a family of ministers, which include my father, both of my late grandfathers and even a couple of uncles who are my father’s brothers. A cousin of mine who is the son of one of these brothers also recently became one, but ministry has been a family tradition to me and a calling to many of my family members. I decided that getting myself somehow ordained would make me able to be some sort of official minister even if it is just an evangelist.
OUTPOST1000 Do you see your ministry as a part of your outreach to those with Asperger’s?
Jonathan Yes, I do see it as a part of that. The music ministry however started years before the outreach for Asperger’s did. I started the music ministry in 1999, at the age of 19 and going on 20. I started the Asperger’s outreach in the earliest part of 2004, at the age of 23 and going on 24. At that time I was handing out cassette tapes and audio CDs of the music I had recorded at the time, and placing my mission pledge to help others understand those with Asperger’s on the leaflets of the CDs and cassettes.
OUTPOST1000 I note that you are not creating Xeroxes anymore, due to their costs, but did how did you compose them?
Jonathan I would type the articles out on the computer, by making word documents in which I would shape out the boxes and type in the words using each little box as it’s own page. Then, I would draw pictures into the front cover box of each article, and make 2 sided Xeroxes in a way that you could make them into a fold-up pamphlet.
Once I started to get enough pamphlets, then I would take Xeroxes of the original articles, cut them and paste them together into a collage, and each collage would become its own edition of Aspie Trax. Since my father is a pastor of a church and has his own Xerox machine, I could make multiple Xeroxes from his copier to pass around.
The church has always paid for the paper in the copier, but since they knew I had a legitimate mission in using the paper, they didn’t mind me making copies from it, and my father didn’t either. However, it is more convenient and less work to just post jpeg scans of the articles on the internet for download, so I make it where they can be downloaded from the internet as it can even go around the world that way.
OUTPOST1000 Is the layout important or is it more a thing of compressing as much information into a small space as possible?
Jonathan It’s really a matter of both of those things. I would try to get it into as small a space as possible, so I could have less work to do as far as the signing and folding goes. I could also use less paper by putting all the articles together into one sheet per edition, and making multiple copies of just as many sheets as there were editions of Aspie Trax. It was also my father’s suggestion when he saw me copying, cutting and folding multiple copies of individualized articles. I noticed myself that I was able to get a little more done a whole lot faster by combining the editions each to their own sheets.
OUTPOST Anything at all you would like to add?
Jonathan Yes, I would also like to add that I have hobbies such as woodcarving and woodworking. In a future display I may hope to show some of that art. I also like to take old pairs of jeans, and cut up the scraps into shapes of a certain pattern, which I will often hand sew together into making stuffed animals and pillows.
I have also had a history of taking my mp3 CDs and my Xeroxes of Aspie Trax out into a ministry for the homeless, which meets downtown every Sunday in my own hometown. Although I do not attend that ministry anymore, part of the reputation I made for my own ministry was for sharing the work out there with the homeless and also with the ministers and members of other affiliated churches.
Another thing I have done in the past was taking my ministry to the bars and the local restaurants, where I would share CDs and Aspie Trax articles with bartenders, servers and even other guests that I was having conversations with. There have been some businesses which have considered this to be the same as soliciting, and the managers of my hometown locations, under the responsibilities given to them by their corporate owners, have not been able to allow me to continue handing it out in their place of business, even as much as many of them have appreciated my motives and intentions in doing so
Moreover, I would like to say that the mission is not over. There still continues to be people in the grocery stores, fast food restaurants, and craft stores where I go to eat and shop, who receive the information and it fascinates them.
More people are becoming newly interested people each day, and the reputation continues to grow, even though being so much as a public figure or a big name does not become the case, and may never be. That is okay though, because the fact that I am making something of this world that is still going to last after I am no longer around is the most important thing.
www.aspietrax.webs.com
