#601: Last man standing...?

Is music blogging Over With? Is the blog as we know it dead? Are these even important questions? (And I was just getting rolling....)
Today I read that my buddy Crabby over at Crabby's Music Review and Top 10 Site is seriously considering retiring at the turn of the New Year. He won't be the 1st. But if he hangs it up, I'll miss his cranky ranting about local radio & his Xcellent Weekly Top 10 lists of the Overlooked.
But there've bn a LOT of music bloggers dropping out over the last year or so. Maybe the newness wore off. Maybe they didn't get enuf feedback. Maybe they have Real Lives 2 devote themselves 2 -- a much better choice than spending all your free time stuck in front of a computer.
Last time I checked, Groove Sandwich had become a working musician and college student. Layla hasn't posted in over a year at her formerly-very-popular Classic Rock blog. Drew has a family life, & tho he'll pop up every couple months with a nature/photo update, I guess you could say he's semi-retired. He's not even doing Green Bay Packers updates this year! (Go with the family thing Drew -- & Thank Ghod 4 the visitors you keep sending me....)
Perplexio hasn't posted 4 awhile at either of his websites. Seano at Circle of Fits has been taking a lot of breaks over the past year, most of them due to health issues. Lex Dexter at The PrisonShip is taking a LONG break over problems that I think he could maybe write his way out of -- it worked for me awhile back.
Even Mark Prindle -- the Godfather of us all, without whom I wouldn't be doing this -- hung it up awhile back.
A few R hanging in there -- Rastro is still posting stuff at his Tumblr site, & we R continuing 2 wreak comedy havoc on Hunter S. Thompson & Larry Niven at Fear and Loathing in Known Space 2x a week, but with the World Series & the prez election, R's bn a busy guy.
Gardenhead is continuing 2 post great stuff at Asleep on the Compost Heap -- he just recently posted a review of his favorite album of 2011! The NERVE! I don't see him ever stopping, either....
As 4 me, there R LOTS of things I still wanna talk about, time & energy permitting. I still have a box of weird CDs from Crabby I'm trying 2 get thru, & more stuff stacked-up that I hope 2 listen-2 someday. I still have Air Force stories & Newspaper stories I wanna write-up. I still have stories & novels I wanna read & talk about. & there's sure 2 B more fits of Nostalgia I'll B posting here without prior warning, & Ghod Knows what might set them off.
I'm still having fun here. But then, I've been a compulsive writer since age 10, & it always makes me Feel Better to have written something, no matter how meaningless & silly.
So I'm gonna keep going, as long as me & the World's Smallest Laptop hold out. Thanx 4 dropping by -- & for gosh sakes will all you good folks from the U.K. & Russia & the Ukraine & the Netherlands & France & Canada & Germany & wherever-else please leave me a comment so I can figure out what the heck you're all reading?
Take care, all You Out There. More soon!

#569: Writing to feel alive

Ah, these Pacific Northwest winters, when the torrential rains & the gloomy, gray, cold, overcast weather sometimes continues in2 mid-June. Like this year. Mon was sunny & in the low 70s, but 9+ months of the year this is no place 4 folks who R prone 2 B depressed.
Last year R local Classic Rock radio station KZOK briefly ran this commercial:
"Wow, Summer in Seattle! What is it -- 58? 62? It's killin' me! And the HUMIDITY?! THAT'S a REAL killer...."
On Fri morn it was in the low 40s & FOGGY here. What's up with that?
Some days when it's overcast & gloomy, sometimes plugging-in & setting-up the CD player -- let alone trying 2 decide what New Stuff 2 play -- is just 2 damn much work.
So instead I read. A lot. Sometimes I re-read old stuff I've had around 4 years. Anything that might help wake me up, remind me that not EVERYTHING is gray & gloomy & overcast. Something with some LIFE 2 it.
I 1st found writing with some real LIFE in it thru music criticism -- in the writings of Lester Bangs, Charles M. Young, Robert Christgau's CONSUMER GUIDES, Dave Marsh, Vince Aletti (he shoulda written more), John Mendelssohn, Chuck Eddy, Chip Stern's great biting jazz reviews, Rafi Zabor, Vic Garbarini, Jill Blardinelli, Dave DiMartino, Bill Flanagan, Matt Resnicoff, & a few others. Humor, Attitude, rage, confusion, depression even -- these folks weren't afraid 2 let it all out -- vividly.
Looking back, some science-fiction -- the 1st stuff I ever read religiously -- had lotsa vivid life 2 it. The poetry & mood of early George R.R. Martin (B4 he got famous writing huge fantasy novels), the late poet Roger Zelazny, early Samuel R. Delany (before 1970), Harlan Ellison's howls of pain & indignation, Frederik Pohl's GATEWAY & others, Kim Stanley Robinson's hilarious ESCAPE FROM KATHMANDU, Ray Bradbury's MARTIAN CHRONICLES, Robert Silverberg's DYING INSIDE, THE BOOK OF SKULLS, & others. Lew Shiner's GLIMPSES. Gael Baudino's GOSSAMER AXE.
In horror, Kathe Koja's SKIN & mosta her other novels rang the bell 4 me. Jack Ketchum. James Ellroy. Peter Straub's KOKO and THE THROAT. Stephen King's IT and THE STAND.
And some carefully-observed general-non-fiction can do the job 2 -- pointing out what's going on in all of its silliness or pain or confusion -- mosta John McPhee's work, Tim Cahill, Hunter S. Thompson's THE GREAT SHARK HUNT and FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL '72.
& more: Richard Di Lello's hilarious THE LONGEST COCKTAIL PARTY. Rob Sheffield's LOVE IS A MIX TAPE. Ian MacDonald's REVOLUTION IN THE HEAD. Jon Savage's ENGLAND'S DREAMING.
I wish I could find more books like these -- stuff that sez in a clear, loud voice: This is what life is all about, what it's like -- it's not all cloudy and overcast and rainy and cold. This is what life was like B4 you forgot about it or got too old 2 remember how 2 feel. This is what life is like 4 people who R Still Awake. So Wake Up.
At nite I read music blogs. Some nites I update this 1. Some days I even play music. What I do here -- & the books I read & the music I listen 2 so that I want 2 write about them here -- is what keeps me going. My job just pays the bills.