UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL WITH DC's FOUNDER

For all of us who frequent the Dark Cavern, or have even had some meetings or experiences connected to the Dark Cavern, we can do nothing else but be thankful for the genius behind it's creation. But how many of us do know the creator of DC? How many have even taken the time to write a personal email to give thanks for the Cavern. I know I have. And again Coco, I thank you - WE ALL thank you.

It is for that reason that I decided that you should have your own section. A face to face (email to email) chat with the founder - Coco.

Carib

Carib: Coco, we all know you are the founder of the Dark Cavern, but who are you, really? Give us an idea of the sex, race, age (or age group), and physical makeup of the one called Coco.

Well Ole Coco is a white guy (as many of you already know) and amazingly ancient. I am 52 (please - do not send crutches or bi-focal lenses through email!!!) I am just shy of 6', a tad overweight and, like all white guys, HUGELY endowed (ha ha - big joke!) However, I have had no complaints in that department - just ask my current lady.

Carib: Which one of the Meeting Places do you live?

Ole Coco is from all over the world! I have lived in quite a few places but my exact location present is known only to the select few. Some degree of the mysterious has to be retained, wouldn't you agree?

Carib: What prompted you to create the Dark Cavern?

My favourite site at that time (1997 approx) was the now defunct Slut Lovers Club. When it closed down for the first time, I decided to try something similar but opted to narrow its rather wider field to Interracial, which, to me, has always been the most interesting and erotic. In the beginning I copied the SLC format, but have since evolved the Cavern into what it is today.

Carib: Was there, or is there still, another site that is also yours? Do you have plans to create another one?

Yes - Dark Wanderer was my first creation, and is still going strong today. In a way the Cavern was born out of DW - almost as a graphical representation of the text side of DW. Back in 1998 I tried another site - Chocolate - which failed miserably. It was meant to be the compliment of the Cavern, ie white guys looking for black ladies. As I have never experienced a coloured girl (and always wanted to) I thought the site would do quite well. But it just didn't take off and I abandoned it after 6 months. It was still on the web until the beginning of this year when the company that hosted it seemed to shut it down (perhaps cos it was never getting updated.) I have absolutely no plans to create another site. The Cavern takes up an unbelievable amount of my time. On average I spend three to four hours a day on it and I just can't find the time to try anything new.

Carib: Did you ever think the Cavern would grow this huge, and this popular?

Jeez no! Never imagined it would still be growing after all these years. And really, its all thanks to you guys out there - cos its you that keep it going. I simply collate all the submissions and publish em. To my knowledge, this interview is my SOLE contribution to the site - apart from all the design etc. Many people predicted that the Cavern would die when I changed the format from free to AVS but I always believed that would not happen. And as I predicted, it got even bigger afterwards. One of my reasons for putting the AVS on was to cut down on the amount of work I would have but that's kinda backfired on me. The advertising section has lessened slightly (pre-AVS I used to publish well over 100 ads per week, now its more like 60-80) but the other sections (especially Dark Desires) have ballooned.

Carib: On average, how many emails a day would you say you receive to be posted to your site? How many do you turn down?

As I download my email throughout the day it's difficult to put an actual figure on it but I guess it can vary between 20 to 50. The weekend is the quietest (probably cos all you guys are out DOING instead of READING) and Sunday is my quietest day. I actually turn down very few submissions. The ones I do reject are the people who mail me multiple times from different email addresses, but there are certain things that give them away and I tend to bin them. There have been a couple of instances when I felt like rejecting submissions received in CAPITALS - cos I like to keep the site uniform with lower case and its usually means I have to retype the thing! Other things like spelling and punctuation drive me mad, but I usually just correct them cos I hate to put em up onsite looking like that (you reckon I'm just a tad obsessive???)

Carib: Have you ever had the pleasure of meeting any of the people who posted on your site?

Sadly - very few! I have met only one - and gorgeous she was too! And I got very close to meeting with another but - as yet - have not. Ole Coco has a fairly difficult situation that stops me meeting people. I am married (to a non-swinger) but also have a lover who, although she IS a swinger, I am exclusive to at the moment (and I think she's exclusive to me!) So it's pretty hard to meet anyone else.

Carib: Do you ever get horror stories about some of the meetings from your site. If so, share one with us.

Not horror stories - more sad ones really. People who have advertised onsite and then asked for their stuff to be removed cos they've received hate mail. Thankfully, this hasn't happened in a long while to my knowledge. Also people asking for their stuff to be taken down cos they are splitting up. And also one or two removals because the person has died. I guess that's all just life, but it's still pretty sad to me.