Citizen of the Month

the writing and photography of Neil Kramer

Tag: blogging (Page 2 of 11)

The End of Blog Niches as We Know It

May 23, 2012 / / 98 Comments

Hi. Today is Wednesday, May 23, 2012. It is a sunny day in California. Today is also the day I have decided to end the personal writing blogosphere as we know it.

Sure, it will continue on in the same way for most of you — business as usual. But it will change for me, and once you see my paradigm shift, many of you will see the wisdom here.
Change is the future.

Blogging, once a radical act, has become pedestrian.  But I’m not going to take the obvious route, and rant about monetization.  Making money is good.  I want to discuss the concept of niche.

Bon Stewart recently wrote a brilliant post about niche from an academic point of view, and came down hard on the concept.

Every group within society has its markers, its distinctions. We think of them as our tastes, but they are – says Bourdieu – markers of our class identities, internalized and usually invisible to us. (Or they were until the hipsters started drinking Pabst, at least.)

Distinction says “I am not that. I am this.”

Unlike Bon, I’ve given up fighting against niches.  There will always be niches.  Even those who feel trapped in their niche are afraid to leave it.

In my view, the problem lies in one simple fact: we are not the master of our own niches. These categories have been created by others, usually marketers who want to sell us things.   We need to fit into a box to be acceptable.   Food bloggers. Craft bloggers. Mom bloggers. Dad bloggers.  Self-Help “You are Beautiful and Be Happy” Bloggers.

This does not work for me. There is a talent to writing for a niche, but it is not a universal one. It doesn’t mean that we are talentless. It means that we don’t have children. Or aren’t married. Or aren’t close to being experts in cooking or knitting or celebrity gossip.  Or we are just weird.

And frankly, a system which categorizes writers by personal lifestyles is extremely crude. Do you read Charles Dickens because of his parenthood?

The dominance of this rigid, superficial system of inclusion — created by the market — is something frequently discussed offline. Some of my friends have simply stopped blogging because of it, feeling as if they don’t belong in the market.  Others have become defiant, shouting to the world that they don’t need any niche; they can march to their own drummer.

I used to be the latter, wanting to go it alone.  But it is a lonely road.  A niche offers more than just monetization or categorization. It offers companionship in a group.  And having a “tribe” creates confidence and power.

I have decided to embrace the niche. Embrace the friendship and power in order to combat the pressures of this lonely and difficult profession.

The difference with my niche system is that I don’t want to follow what the market has decided is right for me.  That boots me to the back of the bus, because that is where the market thinks I belong.  I want to create a niche that works and empowers me.

There is historical precedents for creating your own niche.   There have been countless artistic and literary movements throughout the ages — Cubism, the Bloomsbury Group, the Beat Movement, Impressionism, Romanticism, Social Realism, Neo-realism, etc.  Many of our favorite artists and writers from the 17th to 20th Century were members of these niches. They were creative individuals — yes, but they also teamed with others to nurture their creativity. Was it exclusionary?  Yes.  Was it focusing on distinction?  Of course.   But it was a far less primitive system than separating the world by lifestyle, marital status, and gender.

I’m done trying to figure out whether I am a humor blogger, a memorist, or a diarist.  I would love to be a member — at least of a while — of a group of Humorous Surrealists. Many of my favorite posts involve hyper-realism where I talk to my dead father or get berated by my own penis. I would love to read more writers who write in this style.   What do our styles have in common?  What is different?  When does the surrealism overcome the artistic point of the piece? What are we both trying to say about the current world?

I presented this idea to Sarah Gilbert of Cafe Mama, a writer I greatly respect. She said that she wished she could be in a movement titled “Domestic Realism.”  I loved it!   How much more empowering to be in a movement titled “Domestic Realism” than being seen as a bland “mommyblogger.” A “Domestic Realism” movement would be committed to viewing the world of the parent, warts and all, showing the dirty dishes in the sink rather than the Architectural Digest view of things.  It would be a distinction based on artistic temperament rather than social status.

I believe that drama is good for the creative spirit, so I can imagine having fun artistic conflicts, like in Paris of the 1920’s.  I would write a post accusing Sarah and her “domestic realism” friends of missing the point of the spiritual in art. She would strike back, accusing “the surrealists” as being immature frat boys, going for cheap bathroom humor.  Of course, when we met up at some conference, we would all laugh together, knowing that our arguments were part of necessary artistic growth, not personal nonsense over who breastfed and who used formula.  The Golden Age of Blogging would begin.

A bit crazy? Maybe. I love writing online, and it makes me sad to see so many of my friends give up.  When did the marketers, PR people, and sponsored posts start dominating the field and setting the agenda?  The current niche system only works for those who fit in.

My idea is simple: don’t quit. Let’s create our own artistic niches.  I’ll see you at the virtual Parisian cafe at night (uh, Twitter) where we can argue about writing.

(note:  this post was sitting in my draft file for a week until I read this post from Helen Jane: Know What You Want)

The Start of Year Eight

March 7, 2012 / / 27 Comments

Yesterday, I was the David against a villainous Goliath, and I lost. But sometimes you need to be pushed around a little so you can awaken you from your own passivity. And this is what happened today.

It all started when Time Warner, a company that controls my cable, internet, and phone service, didn’t show up for their service call after I waited around all morning yesterday. They said they had to reschedule their arrival until the next day.

“Tomorrow is my birthday.” I said. “I’m not sitting around all day waiting for Time Warner on my birthday!”

The duel had begun.

“OK, then we will come on Thursday.”

“At what time.”

“Between 9AM and noon.”

“Can you be any more specific?” I asked.

“No.”

“OK.”

I hung up the phone dissatisfied. I lost the battle. This defeat felt symbolic, and it came at the wrong time. Today is my birthday. It is also the seventh anniversary of my blog. I had been waiting for this day for weeks, because I had hoped to write an inspiring blog post for you. I wanted to wow you with my confidence, to share with you my hopes and dreams that I was going to realize this year.

But based on my timid response yesterday to Time Warner, I lost my mojo. It seemed as if this new year of my life was going to be pretty much the same as the year before. I had been knocked down in the ring too many times, and my once youthful cockiness had faded.

I’d become superstitious, fearful, like my great-grandmother who grew up in a shtetl in Eastern Europe. I was looking at events as if the Universe was sending me messages about my life, and the world was saying that I was a speck of dust compared to the iron fist of Time Warner.

This made me sad. Once upon a time, I was the type of man that spit in the face of superstition. If there was a ladder on the street, I walked under it, gleefully, just to tempt the fates.

“Don’t open your umbrella inside the house,” my great-grandmother use to say, and I would open up my umbrella like an indoors Mary Poppins, just to be contrary.

I would chase the black cat, would say God’s name in vein, and would laugh when a mirror would crack during an earthquake. Sophia and I got married on October 13th. I was not afraid of lightening or thunder, tarot cards or palm readers.

“Come on, death,” I would yell at the guy in the robe with the sickle. “Challenge me to a game of chess, you bony loser.”

I believed in science and reason, not old wives’ tales.

But as the years passed by and I became older, I met the real enemy, and his name was Time.

Time is not a metaphor or a superstition. It is real, like a river that will never run dry, or a heavy grey cloud that descends, slowly, until the mist embraces you like a shroud, and you cannot see anymore.

You can not ignore Time. You hear the clock and see the scrolling numbers on the screen as the seconds tick away. You feel it in your bones as you try to run to catch the bus but your feet drag. Time deserves respect. Time flies. And it’s scary.

Naturally, when fear arises, so does a belief in superstition. My great-grandmother believed in “knocking on wood” and wearing amulets. The smart pray and follow the rules, and are rewarded. The foolish walk under the ladder, snubbing the Gods, and get what they deserve.

The flow of time makes us desperate to control it, even when we know that no amount of make-up or plastic surgery can stop it. I, too, embraced superstition. I folded up my umbrellas and said “God Bless You,” at every sneeze. I avoided ladders. I bowed in the synagogue, kneeled at the mosque, and crossed myself at church. I wondered if my marital problems were all based on our decision to get married on the 13th of October.

But after I lost to Time Warner, it was enough. It is not worth living at all if you are going to be fearful of your own shadow. I was done being a welcome mat to the Goliath. I would believe in myself, not superstition, or authority. That would be my birthday present to myself.

I decided to take a walk and announce this important piece of personal news to the world. My body was eager to move, my shoulders pulled back, my back stretched. I wanted to send my positive energy into the air, lighting up the city.

I left my house. It was a beautiful Southern California day, with temperatures in the upper 70s. I headed for the nearby dog park, taking a shortcut through the alleyway. I always enjoyed watching the energetic dogs running wild in the park, off their leashes, without a care in the world.

As I opened the back gate, I found my path blocked. A bunch of scavenger birds on the garbage bin, munching on the crumbs on some leftover pizza boxes. The birds were all black crows, and they were shrieking in some Devil’s language, staring at me with their glassy dead eyes.

I think they were crows. They could have also been ravens. I don’t know my birds very well. All I know is that my great-grandmother would not cross their black magic path. I’ve read enough books as an English Major in college to know the literary symbolism of crows and ravens. Evil. Death. Misery. Bad luck. Not the type of sign you want to see before your birthday.

A month ago, I might have turned and gone the other way. But I had already been screwed once today by a Goliath — by Time Warner — and it was not going to happen again. These were just birds. I was a man. Any meaning these birds had came from my weak, frightened human mind, not reality.

Edgar Allen Poe once wrote:

“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

Nevermore. Indeed.

“Get the fuck out of here, you fucking raven/crows,” I yelled at the group of filthy birds. “I don’t believe in your symbolism and I don’t want you eating any leftover pizza in my fucking alley.”

I bent down, grabbed some pebbles and tossed it at them. The leader of the birds, the one darkest and bulkiest, glared at me with his freaky eyes, saliva dripping down from his mouth, but I didn’t look away. Not for a second.

I put up my middle finger at showed the bird MY BIRD.

“Eat shit, you winged pussy” I said.

The Queen of the ravens/crows let out an ear-piercing yelp, then flitted away in shame. The bird had lost to a man.

And like the hunter who mounts the deer head over his fireplace, I took at instagram photo of the defeated raven/crow. It was my prize. My birthday card.

Today is my birthday. Today is the seventh anniversary of my blog. Today is a new day. Today I live without superstition or fear. Today I write with confidence. Today I have a voice. Watch out, Time Warner. I am not David to your Goliath anymore.

Happy Birthday to Me
Happy Birthday to Me
Happy Birthday…

(the rest of this song has been deleted due to a cease and desist letter).

This song, written by two sisters from Kentucky, Mildred J. Hill and Patty Smith Hill, was copyrighted for 75 years in 1935 by the Chicago music publisher Clayton F. Summy Company, which later became Summy-Birchard Music, which is now owned by TIME WARNER!!!

Fuck you, Time Warner! But this battle doesn’t end here. Your media empire is no match for one man’s voice. This blog continues now for an eighth year, longer than some of your TV shows. So, YOU better watch out.

Truth Quotient: 68%

#blog2012

December 12, 2011 / / 24 Comments

December is a month where many of us look back, and look forward, preparing ourselves to take the next step into the new year.

During the past, this would be a time where I would go into my blog archives and compile my ten favorite posts.  This year, I haven’t been motivated to do that.

2011 was an odd year for me online.

I felt more isolated as a blogger in 2011, as most of my peers grouped together under the parenting umbrella.

The energy moved away from personal blogs to social media and group blogs.

I had a troll bugging me for months.

I wrote less on the blog, and lost touch with others.

I went from someone who hardly knew how to use a camera to a person running around New York City taking instagram photos, feeling that I could better capture my daily emotional state with images than words.

I seriously thought about ending my blog, and focusing my energies on more practical endeavors.

But I plan to continue.   I am crazy like that.

Do you have any plans for your blog in 2012?  Do you feel that personal blogging is dead? Do you feel that only 1% of the bloggers get 99% of the attention?  Do you believe that you can make money with your blog?  Can you still be honest about our lives online without being called a freak?

Usually, we discuss these issues at expensive blogging conferences in far-away cities.  But a couple of us came up with an idea —  why not just come onto Twitter tonight, for free, in an organized by free-wheeling conversation on this subject?   No sponsors.  Just talk.

Want to discuss the state of blogging heading into 2012?  Tweet w/ @Schmutzie & I and many others at 10pm EST (7PM PST) tonight, Monday, December 12.

use the hashtag #blog2012

And remember, despite our many concerns as bloggers in an unstable economy, we should celebrate another year of online writing!   This Sunday, December 18, is The Sixth Annual Blogger Christmahanukwanzaakah Online Holiday Concert!  

Please submit all songs and photos by December 17th.

Are Ranking Lists Bad for Blogging?

November 14, 2011 / / 38 Comments

With so many writers and bloggers working online today, how do we identify the talent in the blogosphere?   Bonnie Stewart wrote an article in Salon yesterday, discussing the wrongness of using algorithms to identify social media Klout.

But because Klout rewards use-value networking over other forms of engagement, it fosters an increasingly use-value environment. The peer-to-peer relationality of social media is undermined by the kind of behavior that cultivates status over relationships. Status is part of the game. But when it becomes the whole game, the broad, rhizomatic networks get boxed in and wither, and then we’re back to something a lot less interesting than social media.

Even though the idea of quantifying influence in social media is rather ridiculous, I will admit that I have a soft spot for using numbers as standards.   There is a reason that SAT tests were created as a barometer for getting into college.  They helped undercut the human-based old-boy network of the past.   Standard enabled those outside the inner circle, such as women and minorities, to attend Harvard.   Standards help create diversity.

Bonnie seems to prefer a human-based system of our peers to identify influence, but who do we trust as an authority?  Should we even attempt to create a hierarchy in such a democratic medium such as blogging?

The editors of Babble, the online parenting magazine, are well-known in their community for making frequent lists promoting the Top Moms on Twitter, the Top Mom Bloggers, and now the Top Dad Blogs.   While these announcements create some buzz for those on the list, they also create controversy and hurt feelings in the parenting community.  I’ve seen this year in and year out.  So, last week, after a new controversy involving the Dad community, I commented on their site.

“If these lists always generate such animosity, why do you continue to have them? It certainly doesn’t seem to enhance the well-being of the community. What is the point? How does it help improve things? That seems to be the question no one answers.”

My blogging friend, Catherine Connors, who works with Babble, answered —

“Neil, relatively speaking, the amount of animosity generated is a fraction of the amount of excitement generated – but animosity tends to generate the more heated discussions, so that’s where a lot of the discussion goes.”

The lists matter because they make a statement about the degree to which parent blogs matter – these are content spaces and conversation drivers that matter just as much as, if not more than, the names that you see on the lists published by Time or Vanity Fair or the New Yorker or People. We’re asserting that this is a cultural domain, and an industry, and that its leaders and innovators deserve to be recognized.”

I appreciate her answer.   And I understand that we all want to be taken seriously, and to see the best of the best get the recognition they deserve.   And clearly there are important writers online who speak for many in their community as conversation drivers.  But surely we can’t we find a better way to promote the cultural domain of blogging than hierarchical LISTS that imitate mainstream old media?

I was a little afraid of writing that comment on Babble, since I am not a parent, and it would appear as if I was jealous of these lists.  There might be some truth to that.  We all want to be included and recognized, but there is something more personal at work here that strikes a nerve.   The compiling of lists, and the acceptance of them as authority, has been a thorn in my side from my first year of blogging.

In 2005, a few months after I started blogging, I was asked to write for this new site titled Blogebrity.  Blogebrity was a site where hip writers riffed on the new trend of blogger as celebrity. The site was notorious for the snark and particularly, their blogger lists. The editors ranked bloggers according to their status, placing them on A,B,C, and D-lists.

BlogHer had yet to come onto the scene in a big way, and the elite blogosphere was entirely male, guys who wrote about tech, gadgets, and sports.  You only had street cred if you were part of a advertising network.  There was a Wild West atmosphere to professional blogging.  Mommyblogging was hardly on the radar.  Even Dooce was on the C-list.

The writing style on Blogebrity was snarky; the writers used Gawker-type mockery to discuss the excesses and deals of the internet bigwigs.  Everyone had the feeling that there was a lot of money to be made in blogging.   It was the new Silicon Valley.

The editors of Blogebrity were under the assumption that I was a snarky writer.   My gig was to focus on the D-list bloggers, poking fun at them, as if they were a sideshow to the real industry.   What the editors didn’t realize was that I found the D-listers the most interesting of all the writers online; I was a D-lister myself who liked reading stories.  I loved that ordinary people AND weirdos had a voice online and were using blogging to express themselves.  To me, blogging was the greatest change in publishing since the printing press, and the “D” list bloggers were leading the revolution in the democratization of writing.  To paraphrase an early cry of the mommybloggers — blogging was a radical act.

While at Blogebrity, I wrote enthusiastic posts about personal bloggers.   I wrote about librarian bloggers, and how they were blowing away the myth away of the shy, reserved librarian.   I wrote about how sex bloggers were pushing the envelope of online-writing.  I was one of the first bloggers to introduce the newly-coined “daddy bloggers” to this audience. Within a few weeks, I had given up on watching TV because reading personal blogs were more fulfilling.

Because of Blogebrity’s snarky tone, the site created enemies with some of the bigger industry bloggers. One tough-talking business writer by the name of the Cowboy, decided to poke fun at the writers of Blogebrity.  Because I was the low man on the totem pole, he mocked my writing, calling my personal blog as irrelevant, and noting that I wasn’t even with an advertising network.    What irked me the most was when he called me a nobody.

I remember this online moment as rather traumatic, something that has colored my experience as a blogger ever since.   Another writer was trying to embarass me for doing something positive for the blogging community — which was introducing new bloggers to the community.

As a response, I wrote a long, crazy diatribe on the site that was 1/4 narcissim, 1/4 Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream speech, 1/4 Jimmy Stewart’s final speech in Frank Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” and 1/4 a re-telling of my overblown elementary school valevictorian speech.

The post has since been deleted, but it was titled “Who Cares about Neil Kramer?” and went something like this, reconstructing it from memory  —

“Who Cares About Neil Kramer?   Hell, why should anyone care about any of those on the D-list?  Or care about any blogger not listed at all?  Well, I tell you one thing.   You should be careful what you say.  Because we are the ones who are YOUR readers!  And now we have a voice too.  Whether we have five million readers or five, we are just as important… I have a dream… blah blah blah….”

You get the point.  It was a bit melodramatic.   After I published it on Blogebrity, I was attacked in the comments by the Cowboy.   He called me a pussy for reacting so emotionally.   He then invited his friends to come by and bully me further — my first true encounter with how the world works — the higher your perceived power, the more your friends will take your side online, even if they are wrong.

I soon stopped writing for the site.

This bullying in 2005 molded my online persona for the next six years. I never monetized my blog. I remained stubborn in viewing blogging as something uniquely different than traditional publishing, and saw any attempt to build a hierarchy within the blogosphere as a spit in the face of the essence of blogging.

Blogging was not created to be a farm league for writers to get gigs with the New Yorker Magazine. Blogging was a living and breathing entity, a fluid community of professionals and amateurs connected through comments and links, ideas and humanity.

I complained when Guy Kawasaki creating AllTop.  Even though I was on one of his lists as a “Top Blog,” I was worried that he was creating a “velvet rope” of haves and have nots by the very act of making his lists.   Authority is powerful, especially when it becomes recognized as THE authority.

I remember how excited I was when advertised the Great Interview Experiment on my blog.  What could be more radical and truer to the essence of blogging than announcing that everyone had an important story to tell, and not just the same ten bloggers who are trotted out for every interview and conference talk?   Rather than wait for some authority figure to interview us as worthy to speak to, why not interview each other based on a random encounter on a blog comment page? Almost 1000 interviews were conducted during the experiment, random blogger meeting random blogger, and proving that blogging is unique, unlike any other medium.

It is almost 2012.  The landscape online has changed since 2005.  But I still feel the urge to codify any part of the blogosphere into a hierarchy is bad for the community at large, and goes against the essence of blogging.  We should be protecting the blogosphere as a democratic force, not creating another 1% vs. 99% that we are protesting on Wall Street.   Who needs a bland corporate retread of the world we already have on TV and magazines?

Why not have revolving lists,  constantly introducing new bloggers to the community, including those outside of the same group of friends?   I like the open model of Schmutzie’s Five Star Friday, with the weekly mix of new names and old favorites.

Catherine’s response makes me flash back to 2005 and my Blogebrity days.  Using her criteria about the importance of leadership and innovation in a cultural domain, were the editors of Blogebrity correct for focusing on the conversation drivers of the time — the old-boy school of A-listers?    And was I wasting my time back then introducing those less innovative and important bloggers who comprised the “D” list — like the parenting bloggers?

Klout?  Lists?  Why is there such a strong human need to organize the human spirit with numbers and rank?

Side note:  Total coincidence.  This afternoon.   The Disney Corporation bought Babble for 40 million dollars.

Ten Things Not to Say to Your Child-Free Blogging Friends

November 2, 2011 / / 48 Comments

1.    Sure it is sad that your mother was just run over by a 25 ton truck, but always remember that there will never be anything as tragic in this world as a mother losing her baby.

2.    You’re so lucky that you don’t have to monetize your blog because you don’t have any family responsibilities.

3.    Believe me, those free, all-expense paid trips to Disney World are more work than fun.

4.    Of course you’re not selfish.  You have a cat.  At least you care about something other than yourself.

5.    I just don’t think your comment is appropriate on this post because there is no way you can ever have any insights into the mind of a child without any experience with children.

6.    I write my blog for my kids.  Who’s going to read your blog after you die?

7.    Don’t you think starting a twitter list of non-parents is being exclusionary?

8.    I would feel like a huge failure without my children.  I am in awe of your strength under these overwhelming odds against you ever finding any sort of happiness.

9.    Just so you know, drinking acai juice is known to increase your sperm count.

10.   This is not really your community of peers.   It’s like me trying to be a Jewish blogger.

Back Next Week

June 1, 2011 / / 19 Comments

Why haven’t I been writing on this blog?

I can give you the professional answer.  I am busy with work.

I can give you the artistic answer. I have been focusing my energies on taking photographs for Instagram rather than writing online.

Or I can give you the real reason.  I am scared.  I promised myself to fly to Los Angeles by July and make some big decisions on a number of topics.  And I just don’t feel in a safe place in the blogging world at this moment to explore this with you.  Because I don’t think you like to read about people being scared.

Give me another week.  Maybe I’ll start small.  For now, I’m just going to work on a script while playing with these Instagram photos for a little bit longer.  It amuses me, despite the fact that I am the laziest photographer to ever hold an iPhone.  Out of the 159 photos that I have published in the last two weeks, 98% of them have either been taken in a three block radius from 42nd Street and 7th Avenue, a two block radius from my apartment building in Queens, or a twenty foot radius from my kitchen.

Like I said, I said small.

Deleting Posts

April 30, 2011 / / 20 Comments

I have an idea that I think will re-energize personal blogging for many of us, but could also be controversial with the traditionalists, because the idea goes against the established rules. The concept is called “deleting posts.”

Here is what I visualize. Each of our blogs will consist of two very different types of posts. One is for the public record, linked on Google for all eternity. The other will be published, and then, because of the lesser content, deleted three days, disappearing into the fog.

The idea came to me while watching the royal wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony, but like many weddings, it seemed more emotionally satisfying to the onlookers than the marrying couple. The entire ceremony was precisely planned. Even the famous “kiss” was scheduled in at a specific minute. I don’t find that sexy. I find that a timed sporting event.

As blogging becomes more about ceremony, presenting ourselves as writers and businessmen for our “followers,” our writing becomes planned. We wear our military uniforms and our designer gowns in order to establish our reputations. We are told to write well, because it is our writing that represents us. It has taken me a long time to accept this philosophy. But it makes sense. We are judging each other on our words, not our character. We are writers. You don’t know whether I kick small dogs as a fun hobby. And if I did, I certainly wouldn’t tell you about it on the page, so it doesn’t exist.

The royal wedding was beautiful. The couple was happy. Or at least that is what we saw on TV. It was part of the script.

I want you to like me. I want you to see me as a future King in military uniform. But I don’t want to kiss on schedule. My favorite posts are where I write about feeling lonely or sad or that I got a boner while waiting in line at the bank, stuff that will never enhance my reputation as a writer or as a role model for today’s children. But I’m not sure that, in this current blogging environment, I want that shit on my blog forever, especially now that I’m dealing with trolls and judgemental readers coming out of the woodwork. I’d to share some nonsense, because this is first and foremost, my space, not yours, and then ERASE it from view. Is that so wrong?

I know a few of you will think this is a pussy approach to blogging. And that we should “own our words.” But is owning our words worth it if we have to turn our blog into a dull royal wedding, or use a fake name, hiding behind anonymity? Better to sometimes do a mob killing of an incriminating post, and then dump it into the East River. That’s how we do it in Queens.

I might delete this in three days. Or I might not.

The Sixth Year of Blogging Begins

March 7, 2011 / / 24 Comments

Today is my birthday.  It is also the sixth anniversary of Citizen of the Month, which I began writing on March 7, 2005.

Even thought I have republished this before, I will do it again.  My first post from 2005–

What’s on my mind this evening — the night of my first post?   It’s the future.   My future.

I see it so clearly.

I’m a very spry 100 year old man, thanks to medical advances and the ability of the medical establishment to take chances with modern patient care.  Who knew that the diet supplement Trimspa would end up eradicating most illnesses from the world?

I’m in my home of the future.  My grandson, Bar Code #466408736664, sits at my side, browsing the internet in eye-scan mode  (using the latest upgraded Intel mini-chip in his brain — the PC having disappeared decades earlier)..  Suddenly, he tells me that he’s at the Coca-Cola digi-Archives site (formerly the Library of Congress) and viewing this very first post that you are currently reading.

At that moment, I will be an old man remembering the early days of the Internet.  The 56K modem.  Netscape.  Those AOL disks falling out of every magazine.  That first illegal MP3.  That first post on the blog.

“Grandpa,” #466 says with a twinkle in his eye.  “Man, grandpa, this post really sucks.”

And just then, I realize that it isn’t a twinkle in his eye, but a reaction to one of those synthetic drugs he’s been taking at school.   I laugh, remembering how I was drunk while writing that first post.

“He’d grown up just like me.
My boy was just like me.”

What a weird hobby — this blogging thing.   In some ways, my writing hasn’t changed much over the years; it is still a combination of honesty and bullshit.

The truth:  I was not drunk writing my first post.  I should delete that now.  Why did I write that for?  I must have thought it was funny at the time.

That is one way my writing has changed; I’m not as funny as I used to be in 2005.   Three family deaths and the ups and downs of marital life can do that to you. Maybe I was never that funny.  But luckily, I have had good friends, both online and offline keeping me in good spirits, a loving mother, and the continued friendship of Sophia, so I’m pretty optimistic about the future. And all this angst, rather than getting me down, has only made me more sexy in the eyes of women, because they seem to love the dark, brooding type of guy! So, there is that.

What will happen on this blog during this sixth year of production?  Rather than tell you in words, I made a little video trailer of an upcoming blog post that I will be writing in July.  So, please stick around for another year of laughter, pathos, and drama!  Enjoy.

Blogging Manifesto for 2011

November 21, 2010 / / 21 Comments

Lyrics + Translation

I throw my hands up in the air sometimes
Saying ay-oh, gotta let go.
I wanna celebrate and live my life
Saying ay-oh, baby let’s go.
(Let’s get this party started; this is what I believe here at Citizen of the Month.)

I-I-I-I-I-I
I came to dance-dance-dance-dance
(I see blogging as an artistic personal expression.)

I hit the floor cause that’s my plans plans plans plans
(and my plan involves nurturing my writing and interacting with like-minded people.)

I’m wearing all my favorite brands brands brands brands
(while I have issues with the term “branding,” I am coming to see the importance of it.)

Give me some space for both my hands hands hands hands.
Yeah, yeah.
(while I am respectful of all the women around me in the blogging community, if a romantic opportunity would occur, and the woman was single, and if it was consensual, I would not feel guilty if I used my hands to feel up some blogger under her sweater, or to make out with her, say at a BlogHer Christmas party or after a Tweet-up; while not my main motivation for blogging, there is nothing wrong with that.)

Cause it goes on and on and on.
And it goes on and on and on.
Yeah.
(life is short. I learned that this year with Sophia’s parents. so stop waiting; be proactive with life.)

I throw my hands up in the air sometimes
Saying ay-oh, gotta let go.
(there will be times I might go overboard in some post, or be offensive, but it is OK. I am a “writer,” not a journalist.)

I wanna celebrate and live my life
Saying ay-oh, baby let’s go.
(because part of life is exploring all sides of one’s life, even the weird, or the sad, or the bad.)

Cause we gon’ rock this club
We gon’ go all night
We gon’ light it up
Like it’s dynamite.
(cause if I’m not gon’ explore my life, why waste my time writing online when there are so many other things to do, like knitting or playing golf?)

Cause I told you once
Now I told you twice
We gon’ light it up
Like it’s dynamite
(my voice has the power of TNT. so does yours! most “influential” bloggers realize this, and don’t want to tell you the truth; they hide behind “lists.”)

I came to move move move move
Get out the way of me and my crew crew crew crew
(I will try to better nurture the friendships of my “crew” next year, because being friends with 3000 people on Twitter and Facebook is ultimately unsatisfying, and even lonely at times, and it is also dumb to waste time wondering why someone is not following me or unfollowed me when I have so many other friends who DO care about me.)

I’m in the club so I’m gonna do do do do
Just what the fuck came here to do do do do
Yeah, yeah
(be confident. don’t worry so much about what others think of me.)

Cause it goes on and on and on.
And it goes on and on and on.
Yeah.
(cause life don’t stop for NOBODY.)

I throw my hands up in the air sometimes
Saying ay-oh, gotta let go.
I wanna celebrate and live my life
Saying ay-oh, baby let’s go.
Cause we gon rock this club
We gon’ go all night
We gon’ light it up
Like it’s dynamite.
Cause I told you once
Now I told you twice
We gon light it up
Like it’s dynamite.
(be a light onto others. Be inspirational, but not in a phony pre-packaged way where I’m hiding my true personality.)

I’m gonna take it all like
I’m gonna be the last one standing
I’m alone and all I
I’m gonna be the last one landing.
(sure, it is sad when your friends stop blogging, or focus more on their book deals or go “professional.” everyone has a different path. I need to find my own.)

Cause I-I-I believe it
And I-I-I, I just want it all, I just want it all.
I’m gonna put my hands in the air
Ha-hands hands in the air
Put your hands in the air-air-air-air-air-air-air-air
(why not WANT IT ALL? what am I afraid of? good writing, a little attention, some money and fame, a hot babe in a sweater!)

I throw my hands up in the air sometimes
Saying ay-oh, gotta let go.
I wanna celebrate and live my life
Saying ay-ooh, baby let’s go.
Cause we gon rock this club
We gon’ go all night
We gon’ light it up
Like it’s dynamite,
Cause I told you once
Now I told you twice
We gon’ light it up
Like it’s dynamite
(WORD.)

Find Me a Photo of Lindsay Lohan!

November 6, 2010 / / 15 Comments

Since this is a post about stealing, I should be upfront right in the beginning, and say that I am stealing this post from myself — I already asked this question on Facebook.

It all started when I read Mom 101‘s post about some magazine titled Cook’s Source stealing a blogger’s written content because they considered it “public domain.”  If you don’t know about this story, Google it — it was the drama of the internet for a day or so.

I have respect for the written word, so I was pretty outraged by the entire subject.  I would never do such a thing.  OK, maybe in junior high, I swiped a few paragraphs from the World Book for my report on Cuba, but I TRY my best not to steal other people’s words.

But when I thought about the incident, I did feel a sense of guilt because apparently I DON’T have the same respect for photography as I do for writing.  My blog is chock full of “borrowed” images taken from Google Images, usually nothing very personal — an apple, a kitchen sink from a catalog — but stolen nonetheless.  In the past I used to credit every photo, but I got lazy — always throwing in the photo during the five seconds before I pressed publish.  I’m such a small time operator, so I figured it didn’t matter.

But after being scolded by Sarah on Facebook (she’s a photographer, natch), I promised to amend my ways.

From now on — I will be a good Citizen of the Month.  I will try to use material from Flickr, take my own photos, or to clearly give credit whenever I use a photo.  I can’t complain about assholes stealing my material if I am end up doing the same.

The question remains, what if you write an article about Obama, and want to use a photo of our good President.  Can I use one from the New York Times, given with proper credit?

Or let’s make believe I want to write a sensationalistic post about Lindsay Lohan.  Smart, right?  That will grab a lot of readers.   One problem.  The post is going to be dull as dishwater without a sleazy shot of the actress being drunk or not wearing her underwear.

So, how exactly WOULD I proceed to honestly get a photo of her.  Could I swipe it from say — the Entertainment Weekly site or The Superficial, and give them credit for the photo?  Don’t they buy it from stock footage companies like WireImage?  Can I find Lindsay Lohan on Flickr?  Are some of you members of a stock footage company where you get your photos?  Isn’t that expensive?  Can we still be small time blog operators, making no money –  and still make our blog posts dramatic with photos?

Can someone help me find a LEGAL photo of Lindsay Lohan?!

(first in a long imaginary series of “trying to act more professional online.”)

Update:  Just out of curiosity, I wanted to see how Babble Media handles their photos for their sites, and they have this posted, which gave me some insights into how it is done —

Babble Media Image Terms of Use

“Babble Media is committed to the presentation of online content that provides the best possible user experience, while also protecting the copyrights of the content producer as outlined in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

Babble Media hosts a variety of blogs, articles and features that contain images posted by bloggers and editors. The types of images bloggers and editors are authorized to use on Babble Media sites include:

Images licensed from photographic archive vendors.
Images supplied to our editors or released into the public domain by public relations and marketing companies for press purposes.
Reader-submitted images, with the implied representation that the person submitting the image owns the copyright in the image and the right to give it to us for use on our site(s).
Images published on Flickr or other public photo sites with licenses granted under Creative Commons, with attribution in accordance with the CC license granted in each case.
Images commissioned by Babble Media.
Images that we believe to be covered by the Fair Use Doctrine, such as:

– Thumbnail images of 150×150 pixels or less, cropped or reduced in size from the original source.
– Images used to illustrate a newsworthy story, where the image itself is the story.
– Images used in a transformative manner, such as for parody.
– Images so widely distributed that they are deemed to have become part of the news.

If Babble Media receives notice that an image posted is not in keeping with these terms and conditions or the intended use of the Comments section where it is posted, we reserve to right to remove that image.

If you think we have published an image or text that infringes your copyright, and does not fall into the categories listed above, we will address your concerns. If it does not comply with our terms and conditions we may remove the image from our site.”

Interesting. Since the law is fairly general, I could say that a photo of a drunk Lindsay Lohan “illustrates a newsworthy story,” or that it is “so widely distributed” that it is part of the news. It sounds like I might have a bigger problem posting a photograph of an apple.

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