SF-  You are sitting very awkwardly right now.  Is that how you sit when writing back to e-mails?

JB-  It is.  It's a terrible way for me to be sitting because it screws up my back and my neck.  I typically sit with my feet on the chair and knees at my chest.  My neck is crooked and I've been told that I have a lot of stress and many, many knots in my back.  I can also crack my back in a strange way too.  It sounds like popping bubble wrap.  Wanna hear?

SF- No, thanks.  Where do you get this energy from?

JB-  It takes a while.  First off, I don't sleep very well.  I wake up several times a night.  When I finally do pass out the sun is already up and I can hear the birds outside.  So I try get as much sleep as I can but I usually wake up groggy.  I sometimes have an hour long bath to ease into the day but generally I need to stimulate my brain somehow before I can be creative or get to work.

SF-  So what do you do?

JB-  Well, talking on the phone and being goofy with a good friend always helps.  Actually, that is a great method to get your brain working and start feeling creative.  A phone call with me is very energetic, fast-paced and I sometimes talk a mile a minute and when I'm done the call I usually have a good train of thought.  But when I first wake up, I'm not a talker at all.

SF-  (gasps)  No!

JB-  It's true.  I actually get kinda cranky if I'm bombarded with questions and have to talk a lot when I first wake up.

SF-  You're not a morning person?

JB-  I can be.  It depends on how well I slept the night before.  I think lots of people are like that.  But generally because I don't sleep very well… which is probably because of my bad posture and screwed up back I am taking it out on people who talk to me the next day!

SF-  Is that fair?

JB-  Is it fair that I don't sleep well?

SF- No, but it's kinda your fault for the way you sit.

JB-  Cripes, who asked you anyway?

SF-  You just did.

JB-  No, I don't think I did.

SF-  Yes, you asked, "Is it fair that I don't sleep well?"

JB-  Umm… no, I don't recall.

SF-  Oh geez.  So let's talk about the SpeakFree website.

JB- THAT is my fault.  I will admit that.

SF-  Where did the idea for the site come from?

JB-  I've always had a personality where I don't hold back feelings.  That's not to say that I am rude to people.  For instance, if I don't like your shirt - which I don't… but your pants are great!

SF-  They're yours.

JB-  Exactly.  But I'm not going to come right out and say that I don't like your clothes.  But when it comes to opinions or thoughts and stuff like that I'm very vocal about what I think.  Back when I was a journalism student I had an assignment for class that I had to write an article for the college's newspaper.  I wasn't really involved in any activities or anything like that at the school so I didn't have an issue to write about.  My classmates and I went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch one day and…

SF-  Did they have bacon?

JB-  You know what, I didn't even ask.  But we had gone there and I ordered fish.  And they brought me an actual fish.  Head, eyes, fins… it was all there.  While most of my classmates were grossed out, I had the idea to turn it into a restaurant review.  And I wrote up a column and it was printed in the paper.  When the paper came out there was this huge response from people and pretty soon I became the restaurant reviewer at the paper.  Many of the columns were sarcastic and funny.  Typically they commented on the service and not the actual food.  Because I had a bunch of relevant commentaries that I had written I decided to post a bunch of them on a website and invite people to comment on them and share their thoughts.  It's much like a newspaper does with letters to the editor.  Well, this is kind of doing the same thing but online.

SF- The site has changed a lot since then though.

JB-  It has and it hasn't.  It hasn't really changed.  The concept has always been the same thing - speaking your mind.  If you mean it's changed in terms of layout and stuff like that, oh absolutely it has.  But the main focus has and always will be expressing opinions and allowing every point of view to be heard.