The Official Blog of Joseph Baker

Hi everyone,

My name is Erik Vance and with Joel busy working doing Mr.Cobalt things he told me I could do an entry on his blog.

Moving to California was a big shock to me and having Joel around has made it so much easier I first met Joel because we lived in the same neighborhood in Oakdale. Joel lived 3 doors down and we went to the same bus stop. Joels mom watched my 4 little sisters and I however after realizing the kind of work that Joel's mom was into she stopped letting us go there.

As a teenager I started doing a lot of ilegit tattoos in my basement/ garage and Joel was always the dumbass who was high enough to be my first victim. I mean I literally had ink pen and a paperclip and a lighter. I wasn't the artist or anything (that was Stephen) I would just trace it. I also did a lot of piercing that, in retrospect could have killed a lot of those idiots. We traveled in the same group for years getting into a lot of deep shit until Joel got married and started to clean himself up then we all kind of grew apart. In our neighborhood you married someone's sister and only if you knocked her up so, it was weird when he married this "rich smart chick" and we grew apart as he got more responsible.

When I was 24 my ex-girlfriend got pregnant and I got involved in this roberry that went wrong, I plead myself out and told on the other guys and served my 10 months and 2 year probation. While on probabtion I went from family member to family members couch and got really depressed. I became bored with my life and menial job at Wally World and started writing about how I wished my life could be. Full of action, pretty women, fun and adventure. I wrote a bunch of short stories for the next few years to pass time and last year entered a writing contest for extra money. Little did I know the owner of Cobalt read my story and was willing to publish a book.

I worked via e-mail with the wonderful Stella McCartney at Cobalt for a long time on my first book, The Steele Project which became the Taran Steele Series. I was very shocked when she suggested I move to LA to work more closely within the company and I reconnected with Joel and it's been really great. When we get together it's like we are 15 again and just having fun. It is really weird to see him as a husband, business owner and dad. While most of our old friends were roped into fatherhood I never thought of it for Joel because he was always so unfocused and immature.

I am having a great time and meeting some really awesome people at Cobalt who have been so nice and Cobalt has some great writers like Shawna Harrison.

Erik