Party on, dude!

I know I should get out of my cozy blog neighborhood more often, so it was only this morning that I came across this post from January by Stavros The Wonderchicken. The post is too long to reprint, but here are a few of my favorite parts:

"Weblogs are a party, damn it, and sometimes they're publications too, or instead, and sometimes they're diaries, sometimes they're pieces of art, sometimes they're tools for self-promotion, sometimes they're money-making ventures, sometimes they're monuments to ego, sometimes they're massive wanks, sometimes they're public services, sometimes they're dedications of faith, sometimes they're communities. Always, they are a public face, one chosen and crafted to varying degrees, of the people who write them. They are avatars, masks, or revelations of our deepest selves. They are political or philosophical, merrily inebriate or sententiously sober. Do not listen to those who would tell you what they are not.

These people will destroy your soul. Classification is for insects.

My name's wonderchicken, and I am a wild party.

It is the rising current of feeling that weblogs aren't a party (or aren't journalism, or aren't a floor wax, or aren't a dessert topping), that they're something important and serious, that is seriously harshing my buzz. 'Let's all take this more seriously', is the message I get from far too many these days, 'because then, well, what I do must be Serious Stuff, right? We're all adults here, aren't we?'

Stop it, you bastards.

Your $500 blog conferences, your NeckFlex For President consultancies, your sad tawdry whoredances with the old media moronocracy devil, your repetitive linkery to the same tired wanna-be self-declared pundits you met at the last convention, your careful management of a media face that is, in the end, marketable, it makes me want to puke. It kills the spirit of this thing that I was so in love with, and turns it, as avarice and self-regard always does, to shit….”

"If you can't write well, write with such passionate muscularity that people stand back and go 'whoa!' Make things, reach out to people. If you write well, keep doing it, and get better, and don't kiss ass for personal gain. If not, just go, bash that keyboard, make a hideous, amateurish squall, one to which, if it has some kernel of glorious truthtelling, people will respond. The mass amateurization of nearly everything is good. If you're a gifted amateur, the world will beat a path to your, er, door…."

"Although its public face may suck pretty bad for a while, and you may need to dig a bit deeper to find its soul, there will always be those in the Fields of Blog who will tell you what they really think, and some of those will move you while doing it, regardless of how well they write. And they'll do it without having to look over their shoulders. 'cause it's a fucking party, pops, and you're invited."

If you ever wonder why you blog, or worry that you don't write "well" enough to blog, read the whole essay.

If any of my regular blog reads already commented on this, I'm sorry I missed it or didn't chase the link at the time. I found it this morning via Michael Hanscom who linked to Jonathon Delacour who linked to Stavros. Read both Michael's post and Jonathon's essay if you have the time.

And Pops, if you ever organize the Vegas Blogger Debauch-O-Con count me in. I have tons of Delta SkyMiles I need to use before they vanish like stock options.

Comments

[pops]

Somebody needs to go tell The Weiner-Jarvis Cabal us natives are getting mighty effin' restless.

I loved Stavros' rant. There's just so much energy in the whole thing.

Mom has another blogging cause she wants me to champion. She thinks I need to alert the media to the fact that not all bloggers are 17 years- old. I think she means physically not mentally.

BTW - I like Delta. They don't check you for the headphones when you change flights.

[Mike]

Yes, but what about Vegas? I haven't been to a Debauch-O-Con since the Tomato Genetics Cooperative (always a rowdy bunch) met in San Diego and certain members (cough, cough) decided to go skinning dipping in the hotel's roof-top hot tub at 2 AM, long after the gates were locked. Fortunately hotel security either had a sense of humor or they didn't want to see a newspaper headline like "Tomato Breeders Busted For Doing Their Thing at the Sheraton".