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Busted.
Sheesh. Looks like i accidentally posted a blog entry that was in draft mode from three and-a-half years ago that I had pulled up to re-read. Sorry ‘bout that. I know if you view my blog via RSS, you may have already read it. Not much I can do about that now.
For the rest of you browser-viewers, however, I've pulled ‘There’s a reason For the World’ back into draft mode for the time being. And I suppose I owe you an explanation as to why.
This was one of my favorite stories ever, which unfortunately never saw the light of day. I wrote it during a very turbulent time in my life (which coincidentally I’ll be touching upon in the next post of my current series), back at the end of 2006. I never finished writing it because the removable flash drive on which I kept most of my blog post Word docs back then, suddenly crashed and I lost everything on it. I was ALMOST finished with that bad boy too (it was altogether about 5-6 parts long as I recall).
I was so pissed.
In hopes of somehow getting the drive restored, I was going to send it away to one of those data services that charge you the equivalent of your first born child to recover your stuff from crashed hard drives and media (using software that takes about 15 minutes to do the job). Bottom line is, I just couldn't justify the cost, so I shelved the idea until a time at some point in the future in which thought I’d be able to afford it.
Well that day has never come, so I've decided to just attempt re-writing the parts of the story I can remember, from scratch. I did have the first two parts essentially finished and saved previously to the hard drive of my main desktop computer, of which the part I accidentally posted today was the first.
My plan is to go back in and finish the rest of it following this current series, just so I can get that monkey off my back. If I ever do manage to get that pen/flash/thumb drive (which still sits untouched and un-reformatted since the incident) looked at and the data recovered, well that’ll just be icing on the cake. This whole series is gonna be backdated anyway, although I will, as has become my custom, create an “Unfinished Business” post linking to it in my blog’s current timeline.
So there ya have it. If you liked the first part, well, sorry, but you're gonna have to wait for the rest. I can’t emphasize how much I recall enjoying putting that story together, originally, so I only hope that I can recapture my thoughts enough to come close to that once again, now years later.
finis
Monday, May 31, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
A Place Called Blogsville (Part III)
The Neighborhood
It’s amazing to me how slow the first half of the recently-completed first decade of the new millennium seemed to pass, versus the last five years, which appear to have evaporated right before my eyes.
Forever ensconced in the midst of that decade will be the three-year period between 2004 and 2006, when I discovered blogging and The Neighborhood was in full swing.
The ‘Hood was in a town we called Blogsville, in a country known as Blogger.com.
We all moved in at about the same time, discovering each other en masse; visiting each other often, attending each other’s parties, and generally, having the time of our lives together.
That strip club I mentioned earlier? There was nothing salacious or untoward going on there; just a bunch of wonderful stories from a guy who managed a strip joint in Florida.
Life at TJ’s Place was one of Blogger’s most popular sites of 2004, and as such was constantly listed on the homepage’s ‘Blogs of Note’ section. Naturally, newbies to Blogsville would visit to see what was going on, and subsequently, a lot of us ‘met’ each other there in the blog’s comments section.
Kevin, the blog’s author was an incredible writer. Despite what you might think, his stories were extraordinarily human in focus and compelling beyond belief. His blog served as the focal point of our neighborhood.
TJ’s was the ‘Motherblog,’ the first of what I liked to refer to as one of the ‘party blogs.’ Those were the places you could always count on finding a ‘live commenting’ gathering in progress on most nights. It was fun. We learned a lot about each other, were introduced to their blogs, and many of the friendships sparked — both ‘cyber’ and ‘real-life’ — have lasted to this day.
It was all so new; so different; so cool. We grew close; very close — some of us, too close.
We all told our stories, shared our lives, revealed our secrets, and listened while others did the same.
There were disagreements, friendly spats, and all-out wars. There was friendship and there were breakups. There was laughter and there were arguments. But much more; there was encouragement; substantiation and confirmation; hope and belief in one other — and thereby, ourselves.
But just as happens in those of brick & mortar, our online community’s resident’s life-circumstances changed; and unfortunately, after only a few months, our little Blogsville neighborhood began to collapse almost as quickly as it had formed.
Kevin, by his own admission, ‘burned out’ by August 2004. Another popular blog, The Abysmal Life of Crayon, also checked out that month. Over the next 2-3 years, more and more folks were showing up less and less.
Some left the neighborhood altogether; others became all but inactive in the group conversation; some just ran out of things to say, or refrained from being so open as to reveal information that might be passed on to outsiders.
In recent years, the neighborhood has almost ceased to exist. Oh people still own the houses, but they’re rarely home. They don’t come out on the front lawn to talk nearly as often as they once did in the old days; they pretty much keep to themselves, occasionally raising the window to throw out a few thoughts from time to time, but seldom are there others around to listen.
The neighborhood has indeed coalesced; those who have remained active have their individual friends that they hang out with, but the block parties are no more.
Just like Real Life?
It’s amazing how closely the dynamics of my old virtual neighborhood have followed that of the physical cul-de-sac I lived on, in Franklin, TN from 1994 to 2007.
Back in ‘94, when our subdivision was brand new, we started like a house afire, and now 16 years later, only two families among the eleven originals on my old block remain.
At last report, I heard that my former physical neighborhood is now comprised of 25% rental properties. For the majority of the original homeowners, it was their first home. Most of them have since ‘moved on up to the East Side,’ so to speak. The neighborhood hasn’t gone completely to pot, though; it’s still a tidy, middle-class ‘burb neighborhood, but it’s definitely lost that new-‘hood smell.
And that’s life; we’re all responsible, but it’s really no one’s fault. It just happens. Same thing applies to my Blogsville neighborhood. It was a phenomenon in the lives of those involved; a phenomenon that had a shelf life which none of us could foresee.
Yet in some cases, the bonds have remained firm. In my case, one of those in particular required some real-time face-time to become immutable.
LA Stories
Something else was different five-or-so years ago: the economy. I had a good job, gas prices were relatively manageable, and somehow, I had considerably less month at the end of the money most of the time.
My Dad, who still lives in Southern California, is in his mid-eighties and 5-6 years ago I had the money to go see him often. I made it a point to get out to California at least once a year. In ’04, I made it twice; once in May ― just before I started blogging, and a second time in August ― not long after having been swept away by it.
Along with seeing my Dad, I had additional motivation as well: to see my friends; the real-time pals of my youth who have always been a big part of my life and desire to make the numerous visits to SoCal that I have since leaving the area in 1992.
Before heading out on second trip to the ol’ homestead, in August, I decided to throw out a fleece and pretty much blindly arrange to meet someone whom I barely knew, but had recently begun running into often in Blogsville.
Michael agreed to meet me for dinner in Santa Monica and we instantly connected. We’ve remained pretty close friends ever since.
The Light’s On, But There’s Nobody Home…
But within a year of that trip, things began to change. The economy, from my standpoint, anyway, began to tighten. By 2006-07, my job security was creeping onto tenuous ground. Fuel prices went sky high, as did most everything else; at the same time, Michelle and I were buying a new house and adding a third more money to our previous monthly mortgage payment.
While I can’t blame the stress I endured at the hands of the economy, I certainly can say that the uneasiness I felt about my job security had an effect on my writing. I lost confidence in myself on a number of levels. I went from someone who had absolutely everything going his way to just another scared, middle-aged Boomer, suddenly out of touch with a rapidly-changing tech world. To say it took the wind out of my sails would be an understatement.
I found myself staying later at work, studying coding technologies in my spare time that I now had to know, both at work and on the weekends, and experiencing the numb, burning sensation on the back of my neck that makes you feel like you want to just burst out of your skin.
Meanwhile, back in my Blogsville abode, I sat and stared out the window most of the time; too stressed to write, too scared to really talk about what was first and foremost on my mind — my real-time job. I tried, though; I came close to breaking trough a couple of times, but for the most part I was writing more apologies for not posting than I did writing many substantive posts.
People would try to tell me not to be so hard on myself (thank you, Brighton), but in reality, I was really trying to apologize to myself.
Next: AJ 2.0
It’s amazing to me how slow the first half of the recently-completed first decade of the new millennium seemed to pass, versus the last five years, which appear to have evaporated right before my eyes.
Forever ensconced in the midst of that decade will be the three-year period between 2004 and 2006, when I discovered blogging and The Neighborhood was in full swing.
The ‘Hood was in a town we called Blogsville, in a country known as Blogger.com.
We all moved in at about the same time, discovering each other en masse; visiting each other often, attending each other’s parties, and generally, having the time of our lives together.
That strip club I mentioned earlier? There was nothing salacious or untoward going on there; just a bunch of wonderful stories from a guy who managed a strip joint in Florida.
Life at TJ’s Place was one of Blogger’s most popular sites of 2004, and as such was constantly listed on the homepage’s ‘Blogs of Note’ section. Naturally, newbies to Blogsville would visit to see what was going on, and subsequently, a lot of us ‘met’ each other there in the blog’s comments section.
Kevin, the blog’s author was an incredible writer. Despite what you might think, his stories were extraordinarily human in focus and compelling beyond belief. His blog served as the focal point of our neighborhood.
TJ’s was the ‘Motherblog,’ the first of what I liked to refer to as one of the ‘party blogs.’ Those were the places you could always count on finding a ‘live commenting’ gathering in progress on most nights. It was fun. We learned a lot about each other, were introduced to their blogs, and many of the friendships sparked — both ‘cyber’ and ‘real-life’ — have lasted to this day.
It was all so new; so different; so cool. We grew close; very close — some of us, too close.
We all told our stories, shared our lives, revealed our secrets, and listened while others did the same.
There were disagreements, friendly spats, and all-out wars. There was friendship and there were breakups. There was laughter and there were arguments. But much more; there was encouragement; substantiation and confirmation; hope and belief in one other — and thereby, ourselves.
But just as happens in those of brick & mortar, our online community’s resident’s life-circumstances changed; and unfortunately, after only a few months, our little Blogsville neighborhood began to collapse almost as quickly as it had formed.
Kevin, by his own admission, ‘burned out’ by August 2004. Another popular blog, The Abysmal Life of Crayon, also checked out that month. Over the next 2-3 years, more and more folks were showing up less and less.
Some left the neighborhood altogether; others became all but inactive in the group conversation; some just ran out of things to say, or refrained from being so open as to reveal information that might be passed on to outsiders.
In recent years, the neighborhood has almost ceased to exist. Oh people still own the houses, but they’re rarely home. They don’t come out on the front lawn to talk nearly as often as they once did in the old days; they pretty much keep to themselves, occasionally raising the window to throw out a few thoughts from time to time, but seldom are there others around to listen.
The neighborhood has indeed coalesced; those who have remained active have their individual friends that they hang out with, but the block parties are no more.
Just like Real Life?
It’s amazing how closely the dynamics of my old virtual neighborhood have followed that of the physical cul-de-sac I lived on, in Franklin, TN from 1994 to 2007.
Back in ‘94, when our subdivision was brand new, we started like a house afire, and now 16 years later, only two families among the eleven originals on my old block remain.
At last report, I heard that my former physical neighborhood is now comprised of 25% rental properties. For the majority of the original homeowners, it was their first home. Most of them have since ‘moved on up to the East Side,’ so to speak. The neighborhood hasn’t gone completely to pot, though; it’s still a tidy, middle-class ‘burb neighborhood, but it’s definitely lost that new-‘hood smell.
And that’s life; we’re all responsible, but it’s really no one’s fault. It just happens. Same thing applies to my Blogsville neighborhood. It was a phenomenon in the lives of those involved; a phenomenon that had a shelf life which none of us could foresee.
Yet in some cases, the bonds have remained firm. In my case, one of those in particular required some real-time face-time to become immutable.
LA Stories
Something else was different five-or-so years ago: the economy. I had a good job, gas prices were relatively manageable, and somehow, I had considerably less month at the end of the money most of the time.
My Dad, who still lives in Southern California, is in his mid-eighties and 5-6 years ago I had the money to go see him often. I made it a point to get out to California at least once a year. In ’04, I made it twice; once in May ― just before I started blogging, and a second time in August ― not long after having been swept away by it.
Along with seeing my Dad, I had additional motivation as well: to see my friends; the real-time pals of my youth who have always been a big part of my life and desire to make the numerous visits to SoCal that I have since leaving the area in 1992.
Before heading out on second trip to the ol’ homestead, in August, I decided to throw out a fleece and pretty much blindly arrange to meet someone whom I barely knew, but had recently begun running into often in Blogsville.
Michael agreed to meet me for dinner in Santa Monica and we instantly connected. We’ve remained pretty close friends ever since.
The Light’s On, But There’s Nobody Home…
But within a year of that trip, things began to change. The economy, from my standpoint, anyway, began to tighten. By 2006-07, my job security was creeping onto tenuous ground. Fuel prices went sky high, as did most everything else; at the same time, Michelle and I were buying a new house and adding a third more money to our previous monthly mortgage payment.
While I can’t blame the stress I endured at the hands of the economy, I certainly can say that the uneasiness I felt about my job security had an effect on my writing. I lost confidence in myself on a number of levels. I went from someone who had absolutely everything going his way to just another scared, middle-aged Boomer, suddenly out of touch with a rapidly-changing tech world. To say it took the wind out of my sails would be an understatement.
I found myself staying later at work, studying coding technologies in my spare time that I now had to know, both at work and on the weekends, and experiencing the numb, burning sensation on the back of my neck that makes you feel like you want to just burst out of your skin.
Meanwhile, back in my Blogsville abode, I sat and stared out the window most of the time; too stressed to write, too scared to really talk about what was first and foremost on my mind — my real-time job. I tried, though; I came close to breaking trough a couple of times, but for the most part I was writing more apologies for not posting than I did writing many substantive posts.
People would try to tell me not to be so hard on myself (thank you, Brighton), but in reality, I was really trying to apologize to myself.
Next: AJ 2.0
Monday, May 24, 2010
A Place Called Blogsville (Part II)
Googled
As great as things were moving along, little did we know that behind the scenes, a pattern was developing that would be repeated across a wide spectrum of web-based companies throughout the 2000s, and Blogger was one of the early ‘victims.’
Growing, but still struggling, Blogger.com was purchased by Web-giant, Google, in February 2003. At first, it was no big deal to us. In fact, the news brought with it a sense of pride, given that Google was sort of the epitome of the kind of growing, aggressive, cool, Web company who started out little and just ran with it. Those of us who had been involved with the business of the Internet for years were encouraged to see a company truly emerge from the DotCom Bust with signs that they really were going somewhere; that the Web truly had a future based on measurable success, rather than merely unfounded speculation as had been the case in the DotCom Boom years.
Google had it together, and we all assumed that what was good for Google would be good for Blogger.
Only one thing though; we soon learned that what was good for Google was good for Blogger — it just wasn’t good for ‘The Blog.’
On May 9, 2004, Google announced the new, massively significant upgrade of Blogger.com. The typical style of blogging, having been incredibly influenced by the medium’s biggest growth spurt: the 9/11 catastrophe, had shifted.
The term, ‘weblog’ didn’t quite apply as it once did. In the 90s, the medium’s early adopters generally held to a style in keeping with it’s name: a log, i.e.: a series of brief, understated, usually off-the-cuff remarks, generally not more than a short paragraph or two.
The format for weblogs was then, generally a galley list of posts, all on a single web page divided only by the week or month.
However, with the citizen-journalist sea change of post-9/11 commentary, blogs were now becoming decidedly more essay-related in length and scope. The new upgrade to Google’s version of Blogger would reflect that.
There would still be the digest front page, containing a dynamically-created run-on list featuring blog entries of a determinate span of time, but now the layout emphasis would be of a format to support longer, individual page blog entries.
The old template we were running still worked, but the publishing process had changed completely.
This rather played havoc with our groups’s faux forum purposes for using Blogger, so on May 9th, 2004, as the rest of the blogging world rejoiced, the TK Bloggers cursed the ground that Google walked on. We walked out in favor of finding new digs, in an actual message board environment that closely simulated our old Blogger home. It took some doing, but thanks to some geeks a lot smarter than me, we got it worked out, and we still meet there today.
But what to do with Blogger?
Curiosity and the Inside Joke
With the new Blogger now up and running, I couldn’t help but remain interested, however in practical terms, I still had no real idea what a blog was, even after being a registered Blogger user for nearly two years.
For purposes of posterity and reference in daily dealings with my TK buddies, I certainly wasn’t going to cut myself off from access to the old account, but I also decided to poke around the new and improved dashboard and see what possibly creating my own blog would be about.
Then about a week and a half after we pulled up stakes on the old blog, somebody posted a link to one of the new, upgraded Blogger.com blogs. The site was creating quite a stir in the local Washington DC media, as it involved the kiss-and-tell-all details of a Congressional page and a prominent US Senator.
The scandalous exploits of The Washingtonienne were, well, interesting to say the least. But even more interesting to me was the concept that one could lay out a story like that for all the world to see, and all you had to do was type it and press a button. I, at that very moment, ‘got’ blogging for the first time.
However I had no illusions of grandeur, thinking someone would find anything I had to say interesting. Instead, I saw it as a way to pull a rather inside joke on my pals.
As I explain in one of my info-pages found in the blog navbar, ‘What happen?’ is this:
We had long since carried on a running joke in the group about a key phrase from an otherwise obscure late-1980s video game called Zero Wing. The mangled-Japanese-to-English transliteration of, ‘All your base are belong to us’ had become a geek catch-all phrase in the late 90s. The application, in varied, crazy forms, was rampant on message boards all across the Internet.
So I decided to create a new blog and call it, All Your Blogs Are Belong to Us, assuming that at least one of my buddies would find it, get the joke, and we’d all get a big laugh out of it.
So I did. On May 24, 2004, I created my blog and started posting — fairly innocuous stuff at first — waiting for someone to notice. But no one ever did.
However, something completely unexpected happened. The more I wrote, the freer I felt; like a great weight on my shoulders was being lifted; it was cathartic. Apart from a few lengthy emails, I had really never before expressed myself by way of the written word, and the feeling was absolutely liberating.
I kept writing, and waiting for someone from my TK group to comment — in my blog’s comments or in our private forum — but no one did…for awhile, anyway.
I posted on disparate subjects; from the etymology of the word, shit, to the mountaintop experience of my very first rock concert, seeing The Beatles in 1964 at the tender age of eight years old.
I found myself in an increasingly comfortable place. I didn’t know where I was going, but I was certainly enjoying the ride.
But it wasn’t until I stumbled upon a virtual strip club that I realized I was in the right neighborhood.
Waaait…c’mon, nah! Get your mind outta the gutter!
Next: The Neighborhood
As great as things were moving along, little did we know that behind the scenes, a pattern was developing that would be repeated across a wide spectrum of web-based companies throughout the 2000s, and Blogger was one of the early ‘victims.’
Growing, but still struggling, Blogger.com was purchased by Web-giant, Google, in February 2003. At first, it was no big deal to us. In fact, the news brought with it a sense of pride, given that Google was sort of the epitome of the kind of growing, aggressive, cool, Web company who started out little and just ran with it. Those of us who had been involved with the business of the Internet for years were encouraged to see a company truly emerge from the DotCom Bust with signs that they really were going somewhere; that the Web truly had a future based on measurable success, rather than merely unfounded speculation as had been the case in the DotCom Boom years.
Google had it together, and we all assumed that what was good for Google would be good for Blogger.
Only one thing though; we soon learned that what was good for Google was good for Blogger — it just wasn’t good for ‘The Blog.’
On May 9, 2004, Google announced the new, massively significant upgrade of Blogger.com. The typical style of blogging, having been incredibly influenced by the medium’s biggest growth spurt: the 9/11 catastrophe, had shifted.
The term, ‘weblog’ didn’t quite apply as it once did. In the 90s, the medium’s early adopters generally held to a style in keeping with it’s name: a log, i.e.: a series of brief, understated, usually off-the-cuff remarks, generally not more than a short paragraph or two.
The format for weblogs was then, generally a galley list of posts, all on a single web page divided only by the week or month.
However, with the citizen-journalist sea change of post-9/11 commentary, blogs were now becoming decidedly more essay-related in length and scope. The new upgrade to Google’s version of Blogger would reflect that.
There would still be the digest front page, containing a dynamically-created run-on list featuring blog entries of a determinate span of time, but now the layout emphasis would be of a format to support longer, individual page blog entries.
The old template we were running still worked, but the publishing process had changed completely.
This rather played havoc with our groups’s faux forum purposes for using Blogger, so on May 9th, 2004, as the rest of the blogging world rejoiced, the TK Bloggers cursed the ground that Google walked on. We walked out in favor of finding new digs, in an actual message board environment that closely simulated our old Blogger home. It took some doing, but thanks to some geeks a lot smarter than me, we got it worked out, and we still meet there today.
But what to do with Blogger?
Curiosity and the Inside Joke
With the new Blogger now up and running, I couldn’t help but remain interested, however in practical terms, I still had no real idea what a blog was, even after being a registered Blogger user for nearly two years.
For purposes of posterity and reference in daily dealings with my TK buddies, I certainly wasn’t going to cut myself off from access to the old account, but I also decided to poke around the new and improved dashboard and see what possibly creating my own blog would be about.
Then about a week and a half after we pulled up stakes on the old blog, somebody posted a link to one of the new, upgraded Blogger.com blogs. The site was creating quite a stir in the local Washington DC media, as it involved the kiss-and-tell-all details of a Congressional page and a prominent US Senator.
The scandalous exploits of The Washingtonienne were, well, interesting to say the least. But even more interesting to me was the concept that one could lay out a story like that for all the world to see, and all you had to do was type it and press a button. I, at that very moment, ‘got’ blogging for the first time.
However I had no illusions of grandeur, thinking someone would find anything I had to say interesting. Instead, I saw it as a way to pull a rather inside joke on my pals.
As I explain in one of my info-pages found in the blog navbar, ‘What happen?’ is this:
We had long since carried on a running joke in the group about a key phrase from an otherwise obscure late-1980s video game called Zero Wing. The mangled-Japanese-to-English transliteration of, ‘All your base are belong to us’ had become a geek catch-all phrase in the late 90s. The application, in varied, crazy forms, was rampant on message boards all across the Internet.
So I decided to create a new blog and call it, All Your Blogs Are Belong to Us, assuming that at least one of my buddies would find it, get the joke, and we’d all get a big laugh out of it.
So I did. On May 24, 2004, I created my blog and started posting — fairly innocuous stuff at first — waiting for someone to notice. But no one ever did.
However, something completely unexpected happened. The more I wrote, the freer I felt; like a great weight on my shoulders was being lifted; it was cathartic. Apart from a few lengthy emails, I had really never before expressed myself by way of the written word, and the feeling was absolutely liberating.
I kept writing, and waiting for someone from my TK group to comment — in my blog’s comments or in our private forum — but no one did…for awhile, anyway.
I posted on disparate subjects; from the etymology of the word, shit, to the mountaintop experience of my very first rock concert, seeing The Beatles in 1964 at the tender age of eight years old.
I found myself in an increasingly comfortable place. I didn’t know where I was going, but I was certainly enjoying the ride.
But it wasn’t until I stumbled upon a virtual strip club that I realized I was in the right neighborhood.
Waaait…c’mon, nah! Get your mind outta the gutter!
Next: The Neighborhood
A Place Called Blogsville (Part I)
In a Blog of my own (Revisited)
Mister Tony Made Us Do It
I was a part of a group of sports talk fans who in the early 2000s listened with great enthusiasm to former Washington Post sportswriter, Tony Kornheiser’s daily talk show on ESPN Radio. You may have heard of Mr. Tony’s broadcast show on ESPN TeeVee, Pardon The Interruption, in which he banters in crossfire-style debate on topics of sports and pop culture with his good friend and former colleague at the Post, Michael Wilbon.
If you know anything at all about Kornheiser, it’s that he’s hilarious, whether anything he says about sports has any other value at all. So I began listening — and laughing — regularly, at just about this time of year, April/May of 2002.
I discovered this group of mutual Kornheiser enthusiasts purely by accident, while trolling the ESPN.com message boards. They all used to congregate in the Major League Baseball forum there on the web site. That was the point at which I realized that I could actually listen to ESPN Radio online from my desk at work; previously The Company had blocked streaming audio on our network.
I began to participate, familiarizing myself with the members of this TK group, and had a fabulous time laughing quietly in my cubicle as I worked.
Then in July, the always outspoken Mister Tony was suspended for comments critical to ABC/ESPN management and their handling of the events surrounding the recent firing of Tony’s radio show producer, Denis Horgan. The message boards went wild, and the TK group staged a war of words (and deed) with ESPN.
That quickly got the MLB board shut down, temporarily quashing the voices of dissension. However we continued on with a continuous stream of complaint emails to upper management (along with a few other less public forms of protest).
By this time, we were all connected via email, but given that we had lost our means of more immediate dialogue, it was clear that a new forum needed to be found. But message board software was expensive, cumbersome to install, and time/resource-heavy to maintain. We needed something cheap (read: ‘free’) and easy, and we needed it yesterday.
Hence, ‘The Blog’
As a result, one of our group’s members suggested a new, free online service that supported this new phenomenon called, ‘weblogging,’ which I had absolutely no concept of at the time.
The site was called Blogger.com, and we found that the way it was set up, we could actually use it as a kind of faux forum by assigning each of us as an author.
Blogger’s format (typical to how most people composed their weblogs in the early days) was not so much based on individual page posts, but rather on those consisting of a brief paragraph or two; from the blog homepage, they were displayed in digest format with the author’s name and post timestamp appended to each entry. As a group, we simply had to publish the blog after each of our posts and everyone would then be able to see it, updated online, en masse.
I knew nothing about Pyra, the parent company responsible for this wonderful little service. I knew nothing about their previous struggles and growing pains over their previous three years of existence; I knew only what we all knew: that Blogger was now the greatest thing since sliced bread.
It was mid-to-latter 2002, and fortunately for us, Blogger.com was gaining momentum, both from within as well as without; but more on that later.
Our new ‘forum’ was operating flawlessly (most of the time, anyway), and in it, we happily congregated, commenting, and contributing to each other’s Tony Kornheiser experience. However we didn’t meet only during the show’s three hours each weekday. Someone was pretty much always there most of the time, chit-chatting, spinning stories, telling jokes, whatever. A profound, albeit testosterone-dominated community was forming; and it was good.
Guys were becoming friends. Despite how much we ragged on each other — oh, and believe me, it was merciless at times — there was always a sense of community, and a deep-down respect for all.
Our new community had no official name at this point, but since it was born of a place called, ‘Blogger,’ we universally referred to it as, ‘The Blog.’
We still do.
Next: Googled
While I may not have any sordid escapades to write about like the Washingtonienne, it's going to be kinda cool to just post a little stream-of-consciousness every now and then.That was my very first blog entry, posted exactly six years ago today. I really didn’t know what to expect of this medium, which I’d actually already been a part of for nearly two years previous, because I still didn’t have a sense of what was bottled up inside of me that needed to get out.
I would like to officially thank my Blog comrades in TK fandom, who on a daily basis, make me meaner, more irreverent and a more than just a sight bit smarter, as the inspiration for my Blog moniker. It has absolutely no significance to me or my life, but it makes me laugh every time I think of it. Those who know where it came from will get it immediately; those who don't, won't.
I'm not exactly sure what I'll do with this thing. It'll probably be a series of random thoughts composed of equal parts friends, family, music, sports, and personal history. I'm kind of excited about the idea of chronicling reviews and thoughts about the many concerts and music shows I attend; just to have a record of the experience. I've never kept anything that resembled a journal before, so this should be fun.
I'd also like to talk about some things that I think about a lot: friendship, loyalty to ideals, genuineness, my wife and kids, and other things that make me happy. If anyone reads any of this and wishes to comment, I'd welcome the dialogue.
Well, here we go...
:)
Mister Tony Made Us Do It
I was a part of a group of sports talk fans who in the early 2000s listened with great enthusiasm to former Washington Post sportswriter, Tony Kornheiser’s daily talk show on ESPN Radio. You may have heard of Mr. Tony’s broadcast show on ESPN TeeVee, Pardon The Interruption, in which he banters in crossfire-style debate on topics of sports and pop culture with his good friend and former colleague at the Post, Michael Wilbon.
If you know anything at all about Kornheiser, it’s that he’s hilarious, whether anything he says about sports has any other value at all. So I began listening — and laughing — regularly, at just about this time of year, April/May of 2002.
I discovered this group of mutual Kornheiser enthusiasts purely by accident, while trolling the ESPN.com message boards. They all used to congregate in the Major League Baseball forum there on the web site. That was the point at which I realized that I could actually listen to ESPN Radio online from my desk at work; previously The Company had blocked streaming audio on our network.
I began to participate, familiarizing myself with the members of this TK group, and had a fabulous time laughing quietly in my cubicle as I worked.
Then in July, the always outspoken Mister Tony was suspended for comments critical to ABC/ESPN management and their handling of the events surrounding the recent firing of Tony’s radio show producer, Denis Horgan. The message boards went wild, and the TK group staged a war of words (and deed) with ESPN.
That quickly got the MLB board shut down, temporarily quashing the voices of dissension. However we continued on with a continuous stream of complaint emails to upper management (along with a few other less public forms of protest).
By this time, we were all connected via email, but given that we had lost our means of more immediate dialogue, it was clear that a new forum needed to be found. But message board software was expensive, cumbersome to install, and time/resource-heavy to maintain. We needed something cheap (read: ‘free’) and easy, and we needed it yesterday.
Hence, ‘The Blog’
As a result, one of our group’s members suggested a new, free online service that supported this new phenomenon called, ‘weblogging,’ which I had absolutely no concept of at the time.
The site was called Blogger.com, and we found that the way it was set up, we could actually use it as a kind of faux forum by assigning each of us as an author.
Blogger’s format (typical to how most people composed their weblogs in the early days) was not so much based on individual page posts, but rather on those consisting of a brief paragraph or two; from the blog homepage, they were displayed in digest format with the author’s name and post timestamp appended to each entry. As a group, we simply had to publish the blog after each of our posts and everyone would then be able to see it, updated online, en masse.
I knew nothing about Pyra, the parent company responsible for this wonderful little service. I knew nothing about their previous struggles and growing pains over their previous three years of existence; I knew only what we all knew: that Blogger was now the greatest thing since sliced bread.
It was mid-to-latter 2002, and fortunately for us, Blogger.com was gaining momentum, both from within as well as without; but more on that later.
Our new ‘forum’ was operating flawlessly (most of the time, anyway), and in it, we happily congregated, commenting, and contributing to each other’s Tony Kornheiser experience. However we didn’t meet only during the show’s three hours each weekday. Someone was pretty much always there most of the time, chit-chatting, spinning stories, telling jokes, whatever. A profound, albeit testosterone-dominated community was forming; and it was good.
Guys were becoming friends. Despite how much we ragged on each other — oh, and believe me, it was merciless at times — there was always a sense of community, and a deep-down respect for all.
Our new community had no official name at this point, but since it was born of a place called, ‘Blogger,’ we universally referred to it as, ‘The Blog.’
We still do.
Next: Googled
A Place Called Blogsville (Prologue)
Waxing Sentimental
I usually do a special post on the anniversary of this space, which today marks six years for AYBABTU. However I’ve never really taken the time to talk about why I got started blogging, and how my concept and awareness of it as a medium evolved to get me to the place I was six years ago today.
I think I’m gonna do that now.
It’s been awhile since I’ve written a post like this. Heck — it’s been awhile since I’ve written much of anything at all. But I’m not gonna worry about that; not right now; hopefully not ever again. Seven months of forced self-employment has taught me a lot about priorities — not to mention the value of melancholy as a state of mind for me.
See, navel-gazing is an art form that comes pretty naturally to me, and to be perfectly honest, has always been the basis of this blog, whether I like it or not. I don’t write 5-Steps To a Happier ‘X’-kind-of-posts. I write long, thoughtful essays about my life, my memories, and the people I love.
After struggling to morph my style into something more akin to the today’s ‘grip it and rip it’ mentality of ‘useful’ blogging, I’ve finally decided I might as well go with what I know.
I’m a thinker, and this is something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately; somewhat initiated by the previous Happy Birthday post to my friend, Michael, who is the greatest personification of what I value the Web as a social medium to be. The fact that he and I could become friends, coming from different parts of the country, with totally different backgrounds (not to mention, upon initial introduction, thinking that each other was sort of a jerk) is simply amazing to me, and not to be taken lightly. It’s something to be celebrated.
However, in the yin/yan of relationship, where there is celebration on one end of the dynamic, the opposing emotion can present itself just as powerfully on the other. The mourning of friendships that die from malnutrition is often sad; even more so because sometimes the death is inevitable.
This is a look back at the beginnings of my personal experience with blogging as a social medium and community-generator. It took place at a time when social media was in its infancy, and its effect, decidedly more dramatic — in my opinion — than it is even today.
It’s about a place that has always been my touchstone as a participant in the SocMed phenomenon; a place that revealed a side of me I never knew existed; a place called Blogsville
Next: In A Blog of My Own (Revisited)
I usually do a special post on the anniversary of this space, which today marks six years for AYBABTU. However I’ve never really taken the time to talk about why I got started blogging, and how my concept and awareness of it as a medium evolved to get me to the place I was six years ago today.
I think I’m gonna do that now.
It’s been awhile since I’ve written a post like this. Heck — it’s been awhile since I’ve written much of anything at all. But I’m not gonna worry about that; not right now; hopefully not ever again. Seven months of forced self-employment has taught me a lot about priorities — not to mention the value of melancholy as a state of mind for me.
See, navel-gazing is an art form that comes pretty naturally to me, and to be perfectly honest, has always been the basis of this blog, whether I like it or not. I don’t write 5-Steps To a Happier ‘X’-kind-of-posts. I write long, thoughtful essays about my life, my memories, and the people I love.
After struggling to morph my style into something more akin to the today’s ‘grip it and rip it’ mentality of ‘useful’ blogging, I’ve finally decided I might as well go with what I know.
I’m a thinker, and this is something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately; somewhat initiated by the previous Happy Birthday post to my friend, Michael, who is the greatest personification of what I value the Web as a social medium to be. The fact that he and I could become friends, coming from different parts of the country, with totally different backgrounds (not to mention, upon initial introduction, thinking that each other was sort of a jerk) is simply amazing to me, and not to be taken lightly. It’s something to be celebrated.
However, in the yin/yan of relationship, where there is celebration on one end of the dynamic, the opposing emotion can present itself just as powerfully on the other. The mourning of friendships that die from malnutrition is often sad; even more so because sometimes the death is inevitable.
This is a look back at the beginnings of my personal experience with blogging as a social medium and community-generator. It took place at a time when social media was in its infancy, and its effect, decidedly more dramatic — in my opinion — than it is even today.
It’s about a place that has always been my touchstone as a participant in the SocMed phenomenon; a place that revealed a side of me I never knew existed; a place called Blogsville
Next: In A Blog of My Own (Revisited)
Saturday, May 22, 2010
What if? (The Rhetoric of Love)
What if today,
You could see yourself
The way we see you?
Or the mischievous toddler
Who never stopped
For more than a minute?
So full of life
and curiosity
about the world around him?
Then you would always know
Without a doubt,
How much we have loved
(and worried…);
watching you change
and grow
and become
the kind of man
we always knew you would be.
And what then?
Would you realize just how far you’ve come;
how proud you’ve made us?
Would you sob like that little boy —
just as I am right now as I write this?
Would you know how grateful
we are to have you in our lives?
What if you could know how much,
how often we think of the journey
that you’ve made for yourself?
Then you would always know
how excited we’ll be
to see you reach your destination.
And we’ll be cheering you on,
all the way.
Happy Birthday, Shawn.
You will never cease to amaze us.
Love,
Dad & Mom
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Blog Post (Toast)Tease
Yeah, yeah, I know...bad pun
Believe me, tomorrow’s post(s) will be better than this one, and hopefully, there will indeed be two — one here, and one here, on my hockey blog.
I just wanted to give you this little tease to let you know that I’m trying my darnedest to resuscitate this thing, while not completely sacrificing the other blog — and vice-versa.
See, I’ve got this problem: I think too much. I exhaustively research every topic on which I post for fear of mis-remembering, mis-quoting, or generally mis-taking a subject. I hate when I do that, and over the years I’ve become incredibly paranoid of allowing myself to slip into the habit of anything one might consider playing fast and loose with the facts.
It’s one thing when I’m recounting a memory from my own personal life; artistic license is still allowed in that regard. But when I’m talking about other people, places or things that can be (and usually WILL be) verified for accuracy by other peeps, the LAST thing I wanna do is be called to the carpet by someone taking issue with the acc’s o’ my facts.
So all that to say, I’ve become a slow-post. I think about what I write, I love what I write, and I will post no blog before its time. Hence my less-than-prolific output in recent years. Complicate that with the addition of PMFF (which DEMANDS both accuracy and timeliness) and you can see; between doing what I can in trying to find a job, finding and completing freelance work, and writing two blogs, my mind is toast most of the time these days — and I’m loving every minute of it.
My wife doesn’t understand — and I’m not quite sure I do either — but it sure beats the hell outta sitting around and worrying.
Sooooo...
Tomorrow — hopefully by the afternoon, I’ll be posting A Place called Blogsville, a very important (for me) look back at this blog and the history of Blogger.com.
I originally began writing it as part of my last, most recent post, wishing my friend Michael a happy birthday last Thursday, being that he has been a large part of my overall experience here on AYBABTU. About halfway through writing the story, I knew it was much too long (heh...imagine that!) to include in one post, so I broke off the Mikey part and continued writing.
It’s nearly complete, and for those of you who may still maintain a space on Blogger, or started here before succumbing to temptation and jumping to Wordpress; and particularly those who still occasionally look in on this blog, who were a part of the community of folks I rubbed elbows with from the days of ‘Kev’s Place’ through about 2007, I trust you’ll find it a fun little romp down memory lane.
On PMFF, I intend to post for tomorrow’s (Wednesday) morning rush, my take on the Nashville Predators/Chicago Blackhawks first-round Stanley Cup Playoff match-up, but from a perspective that not many have thus-far addressed.
So look for that if you’re a follower of my other blog, but be sure to be back here tomorrow afternoon (approximately 3:00pm CDT) for my (possibly) two-parter on Blogger.com
* * * * *
finis
Believe me, tomorrow’s post(s) will be better than this one, and hopefully, there will indeed be two — one here, and one here, on my hockey blog.
I just wanted to give you this little tease to let you know that I’m trying my darnedest to resuscitate this thing, while not completely sacrificing the other blog — and vice-versa.
See, I’ve got this problem: I think too much. I exhaustively research every topic on which I post for fear of mis-remembering, mis-quoting, or generally mis-taking a subject. I hate when I do that, and over the years I’ve become incredibly paranoid of allowing myself to slip into the habit of anything one might consider playing fast and loose with the facts.
It’s one thing when I’m recounting a memory from my own personal life; artistic license is still allowed in that regard. But when I’m talking about other people, places or things that can be (and usually WILL be) verified for accuracy by other peeps, the LAST thing I wanna do is be called to the carpet by someone taking issue with the acc’s o’ my facts.
So all that to say, I’ve become a slow-post. I think about what I write, I love what I write, and I will post no blog before its time. Hence my less-than-prolific output in recent years. Complicate that with the addition of PMFF (which DEMANDS both accuracy and timeliness) and you can see; between doing what I can in trying to find a job, finding and completing freelance work, and writing two blogs, my mind is toast most of the time these days — and I’m loving every minute of it.
My wife doesn’t understand — and I’m not quite sure I do either — but it sure beats the hell outta sitting around and worrying.
Sooooo...
Tomorrow — hopefully by the afternoon, I’ll be posting A Place called Blogsville, a very important (for me) look back at this blog and the history of Blogger.com.
I originally began writing it as part of my last, most recent post, wishing my friend Michael a happy birthday last Thursday, being that he has been a large part of my overall experience here on AYBABTU. About halfway through writing the story, I knew it was much too long (heh...imagine that!) to include in one post, so I broke off the Mikey part and continued writing.
It’s nearly complete, and for those of you who may still maintain a space on Blogger, or started here before succumbing to temptation and jumping to Wordpress; and particularly those who still occasionally look in on this blog, who were a part of the community of folks I rubbed elbows with from the days of ‘Kev’s Place’ through about 2007, I trust you’ll find it a fun little romp down memory lane.
On PMFF, I intend to post for tomorrow’s (Wednesday) morning rush, my take on the Nashville Predators/Chicago Blackhawks first-round Stanley Cup Playoff match-up, but from a perspective that not many have thus-far addressed.
So look for that if you’re a follower of my other blog, but be sure to be back here tomorrow afternoon (approximately 3:00pm CDT) for my (possibly) two-parter on Blogger.com
* * * * *
finis
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Well, I guess Facebook is Good for Something After All
Happy Birthday, Knucklehead
Although I’ve had an account on Facebook for much longer, I’m clearly a Twitter enthusiast when it comes to a preference between the two ubiquitous social media destinations.
Oh sure, FB has more to offer in the way of features and contact messaging, and quite frankly, you really don’t need to wade aimlessly for weeks or months to really ‘get’ Facebook. That’s only one reason why it’s so wildly popular.
However once you get the hang of it, Twitter is so much more immediate, malleable, and interesting in my opinion. You can easily conduct half a dozen conversations at one time on Twitter, though admittedly, that’s stretching things a bit for someone as ADD-esque as me.
But it’s much easer to filter out the noise and cancel out the silliness, gameplay, and other social nonessentials to a coherent online conversation on Twitter as opposed to FB. I prefer it for that reason above all others.
However there’s still plenty to like about Facebook.
Were it not for this, the most successful and longest-standing of all major social media applications, I would be all but disconnected from many of my high school friends and an even greater percentage of my extended family.
I love it for that, and will always maintain a presence there.
But today, I’m particularly grateful for one little bonus feature that Facebook offers, because it gives me the opportunity to extend a greeting to someone whom I care a great deal about.
Today is the birthday of probably my favorite person in all of cyberspace, MakeMineMike.
How do I know it’s his birthday? Certainly not because of my fabulous memory! Facebook reminded me. FB’s birthday reminder app is by far the most useful ‘push’ type of notification (other than, obviously, notifying you when someone writes a message on your wall) that Facebook provides; because if you’re like me, you need to be reminded to go to the bathroom most of the time.
And sorry, they still haven’t figured out an app for that just yet.
Next best thing though is the birthday reminder for those FB friends about whom you might just need a friendly memory-poke.
And given that Mike and I don’t communicate on as frequent a basis as we used to, that’s pretty helpful for moi.
So today is Mikey’s big Day and lest I embarrass him too much further here, allow me to sum up saying that I think of him often, and consider it a privilege to call him a friend.
Happy Birthday, pal. I hope you and Randi are able to go out and have a great time tonight.
Talk to you soon.
:)
* * * * *
finis
Although I’ve had an account on Facebook for much longer, I’m clearly a Twitter enthusiast when it comes to a preference between the two ubiquitous social media destinations.
Oh sure, FB has more to offer in the way of features and contact messaging, and quite frankly, you really don’t need to wade aimlessly for weeks or months to really ‘get’ Facebook. That’s only one reason why it’s so wildly popular.
However once you get the hang of it, Twitter is so much more immediate, malleable, and interesting in my opinion. You can easily conduct half a dozen conversations at one time on Twitter, though admittedly, that’s stretching things a bit for someone as ADD-esque as me.
But it’s much easer to filter out the noise and cancel out the silliness, gameplay, and other social nonessentials to a coherent online conversation on Twitter as opposed to FB. I prefer it for that reason above all others.
However there’s still plenty to like about Facebook.
Were it not for this, the most successful and longest-standing of all major social media applications, I would be all but disconnected from many of my high school friends and an even greater percentage of my extended family.
I love it for that, and will always maintain a presence there.
But today, I’m particularly grateful for one little bonus feature that Facebook offers, because it gives me the opportunity to extend a greeting to someone whom I care a great deal about.
Today is the birthday of probably my favorite person in all of cyberspace, MakeMineMike.
How do I know it’s his birthday? Certainly not because of my fabulous memory! Facebook reminded me. FB’s birthday reminder app is by far the most useful ‘push’ type of notification (other than, obviously, notifying you when someone writes a message on your wall) that Facebook provides; because if you’re like me, you need to be reminded to go to the bathroom most of the time.
And sorry, they still haven’t figured out an app for that just yet.
Next best thing though is the birthday reminder for those FB friends about whom you might just need a friendly memory-poke.
And given that Mike and I don’t communicate on as frequent a basis as we used to, that’s pretty helpful for moi.
So today is Mikey’s big Day and lest I embarrass him too much further here, allow me to sum up saying that I think of him often, and consider it a privilege to call him a friend.
Happy Birthday, pal. I hope you and Randi are able to go out and have a great time tonight.
Talk to you soon.
:)
* * * * *
finis
Saturday, April 03, 2010
Discover a Musical Treasure: 3rd & Lindsley Bar And Grill
Long Time Coming
It's been an interesting year for me, blog-wise. I began a hockey blog last September and began engaging not only a whole new group of readers, but have met an entirely new group of friends and contacts. It has it been a lot of fun, writing about the Nashville Predators, but in an opportunity that came up this week, I've gotten a chance to do something I had been wanting to do here on AYBABTU for years.
The Tennessean's OnNashville.com blog is celebrating Nashville in April and asked bloggers to submit their reasons why April is great. Below is the story I submitted, but as usual, I went a little too wordy and they asked me to kindly cut it down to size. You can view the abridged version here.
The subject is my favorite music venue, evAR, the one place that convinced me that Nashville was the place I truly wanted to be.
* * * * *
Off the Beaten Path
There aren’t too many things I enjoy doing as much as taking in a Nashville Predators hockey game, but one of them is sampling the vast assortment of live music from venues all over this great city.
If you’re visiting Nashville for the first time, or the fiftieth — or worse yet, if you live here — and are still under the mistaken notion that Music City is only about Country Music, you’re missing out on something truly special.
The Ryman Auditorium, you know about. Oh, and you’ve probably heard of the Bluebird Café and perhaps The Exit-In.
But if you’re looking for live music that certainly doesn’t exclude Country, but by the same token, doesn’t require boots and a cowboy hat to get you in the door, I’ve got just the place.
My family and I relocated to Nashville from Southern California in 1992, and admittedly, Country Music wasn’t the dominant genre in my CD collection. As far as live music went, the honky-tonks on lower Broad were fun, but didn’t satisfy my jones for the more eclectic mix of styles I’d grown up with in Los Angeles; that is, until I discovered one of Nashville’s not-so-best kept secrets among music venues, 3rd & Lindsley Bar And Grill.
It’s an unpretentious, unassuming place, tucked away in a strip mall, about a half-mile off the beaten path of the most typical Music City visitor, but like many hidden treasures, the value is in the discovery.
The intimate, 275-seat bar and restaurant features a ground-level stage at the apex of it’s L-shaped listening room layout, providing a wonderful up-close vantage point for the vast majority of it’s occupants. This physical connection with the artist onstage instantly bonds listener with performer, making for an unforgettable musical experience.
The Progressive Approach
Owner Ron Brice opened 3rd & Lindsley back in February of 1991, to start afresh with a new and a different approach than that of his previous musical venture.
Brice formerly owned another local Country Music club called The Stagecoach Lounge on Murfreesboro Road. But in the midst of the sweeping ‘Country-as-Pop’ explosion of the late 1980s, he sensed a shift in the wind.
By 1990, Brice began to notice the passing genre fad depart from the innovative sound of artists like Garth Brooks and Lyle Lovett, growing more homogenized and much less progressive than just a few years prior. He decided to shift gears.
That wonderful confluence of musical styles that was the early 1990s offered a veritable cornucopia of sound from which Brice began to showcase; attracting acts for his new club based on the progressive, blended genres of Blues, Adult Alternative, and Americana.
Not coincidentally, he discovered an important partner in another recently-minted Nashville institution, radio station WRLT, Lightning 100.
A Match Made in Progressive Musical Heaven
One year earlier, in March of 1990, Lightning 100 had begun its current 20-year run as Music City’s longest-running radio station without a format change. It’s progressive, independent philosophy hailed from the golden age of album-oriented rock radio of the late 60s and early 70s, featuring an eclectic mix of classic rock, adult alternative, reggae, blues, and Americana that was a true reflection of the musical diversity of Nashville’s songwriting and recording industry, which is often masked and somewhat overwhelmed by the preponderance of the Country Music media machine.
It was a perfect marriage, and WRLT Senior Account Executive, Lesli (‘Dollar’) Bills, was the matchmaker. Working with Lesli, Brice began to offer ‘battle of the Bands’ contests, attracting exposure for local bands whose music was also supported by Lightning 100.
Soon, a number of strong regional and national acts began to frequent the 3rd & Lindsley stage with regularity; names like Ashley Cleveland, Jonell Mosser, and Bob & Etta Britt, were joined by the likes of John Prine and John McLaughlin as regular performers.
Brice said of his relationship with Bills and Lightning 100, “I just gave them my whole advertising budget and said, ‘there…now, make me or break me!’” Needless to say, 3rd & Lindsley ain’t broke yet.
On the synergy of common musical interests between he and his radio partner, Brice added, “Their cool, progressive approach has never gotten stale or diluted; it has stayed the same since we started out…(the relationship is) just a win-win-win.”
Nashville Sunday Night
3rd & Lindsley’s reputation for featuring Nashville’s best top-notch local, regional, and National acts indeed remains; fueled in part by yet another collaborative effort with Lightning 100.
Since 1996 the weekly radio and World Wide Web broadcast, Nashville Sunday Night has showcased a variety of top talent from all ends of the contemporary music spectrum.
It’s particularly interesting to note the numerous emerging artists who have performed on NSN and have gone on to national prominence soon thereafter. Names like Train, David Gray, Ray LaMontagne , The Fray, and KT Tunstall, all performed there and almost immediately thereafter went nuclear on the national scene.
Tin Pan South
Among the other special musical events 3rd & Lindsley participates in is the annual Nashville Songwriters Association International showcase, Tin Pan South, which wraps up tonight with a terrific lineup featuring, Butterfly Boucher, Katie Herzig, Trent Dabbs, and Matthew Perryman Jones.
Nashville Sunday Night takes this week off in recognition of the Easter holiday, but returns next week with yet another hugely notable performer who calls Nashville home, the immortal Leon Russell.
If you’re in town for any of these shows, or whenever you’re in Nashville, be sure to take advantage of this tremendous venue, where the food is as good as the music!
3rd & Lindsley is located at 818 3rd Avenue South; one half mile south of Broadway in Nashville. Visit their website for more details.
Tickets are typically available at the door, but for select shows, be sure to visit 3rd & Lindsley’s calendar page for advance sale tickets. Take it from a longtime fan of this venue, in light of the limited seating capacity, when they offer advance tickets for an artist you want to see, pick ‘em up; you don’t want to get shut out at the door. And you definitely don’t want to miss out on this treasure among Nashville’s musical landmarks!
* * * * *
finis
It's been an interesting year for me, blog-wise. I began a hockey blog last September and began engaging not only a whole new group of readers, but have met an entirely new group of friends and contacts. It has it been a lot of fun, writing about the Nashville Predators, but in an opportunity that came up this week, I've gotten a chance to do something I had been wanting to do here on AYBABTU for years.
The Tennessean's OnNashville.com blog is celebrating Nashville in April and asked bloggers to submit their reasons why April is great. Below is the story I submitted, but as usual, I went a little too wordy and they asked me to kindly cut it down to size. You can view the abridged version here.
The subject is my favorite music venue, evAR, the one place that convinced me that Nashville was the place I truly wanted to be.
* * * * *
Off the Beaten Path
There aren’t too many things I enjoy doing as much as taking in a Nashville Predators hockey game, but one of them is sampling the vast assortment of live music from venues all over this great city.
If you’re visiting Nashville for the first time, or the fiftieth — or worse yet, if you live here — and are still under the mistaken notion that Music City is only about Country Music, you’re missing out on something truly special.
The Ryman Auditorium, you know about. Oh, and you’ve probably heard of the Bluebird Café and perhaps The Exit-In.
But if you’re looking for live music that certainly doesn’t exclude Country, but by the same token, doesn’t require boots and a cowboy hat to get you in the door, I’ve got just the place.
My family and I relocated to Nashville from Southern California in 1992, and admittedly, Country Music wasn’t the dominant genre in my CD collection. As far as live music went, the honky-tonks on lower Broad were fun, but didn’t satisfy my jones for the more eclectic mix of styles I’d grown up with in Los Angeles; that is, until I discovered one of Nashville’s not-so-best kept secrets among music venues, 3rd & Lindsley Bar And Grill.
It’s an unpretentious, unassuming place, tucked away in a strip mall, about a half-mile off the beaten path of the most typical Music City visitor, but like many hidden treasures, the value is in the discovery.
The intimate, 275-seat bar and restaurant features a ground-level stage at the apex of it’s L-shaped listening room layout, providing a wonderful up-close vantage point for the vast majority of it’s occupants. This physical connection with the artist onstage instantly bonds listener with performer, making for an unforgettable musical experience.
The Progressive Approach
Owner Ron Brice opened 3rd & Lindsley back in February of 1991, to start afresh with a new and a different approach than that of his previous musical venture.
Brice formerly owned another local Country Music club called The Stagecoach Lounge on Murfreesboro Road. But in the midst of the sweeping ‘Country-as-Pop’ explosion of the late 1980s, he sensed a shift in the wind.
By 1990, Brice began to notice the passing genre fad depart from the innovative sound of artists like Garth Brooks and Lyle Lovett, growing more homogenized and much less progressive than just a few years prior. He decided to shift gears.
That wonderful confluence of musical styles that was the early 1990s offered a veritable cornucopia of sound from which Brice began to showcase; attracting acts for his new club based on the progressive, blended genres of Blues, Adult Alternative, and Americana.
Not coincidentally, he discovered an important partner in another recently-minted Nashville institution, radio station WRLT, Lightning 100.
A Match Made in Progressive Musical Heaven
One year earlier, in March of 1990, Lightning 100 had begun its current 20-year run as Music City’s longest-running radio station without a format change. It’s progressive, independent philosophy hailed from the golden age of album-oriented rock radio of the late 60s and early 70s, featuring an eclectic mix of classic rock, adult alternative, reggae, blues, and Americana that was a true reflection of the musical diversity of Nashville’s songwriting and recording industry, which is often masked and somewhat overwhelmed by the preponderance of the Country Music media machine.
It was a perfect marriage, and WRLT Senior Account Executive, Lesli (‘Dollar’) Bills, was the matchmaker. Working with Lesli, Brice began to offer ‘battle of the Bands’ contests, attracting exposure for local bands whose music was also supported by Lightning 100.
Soon, a number of strong regional and national acts began to frequent the 3rd & Lindsley stage with regularity; names like Ashley Cleveland, Jonell Mosser, and Bob & Etta Britt, were joined by the likes of John Prine and John McLaughlin as regular performers.
Brice said of his relationship with Bills and Lightning 100, “I just gave them my whole advertising budget and said, ‘there…now, make me or break me!’” Needless to say, 3rd & Lindsley ain’t broke yet.
On the synergy of common musical interests between he and his radio partner, Brice added, “Their cool, progressive approach has never gotten stale or diluted; it has stayed the same since we started out…(the relationship is) just a win-win-win.”
Nashville Sunday Night
3rd & Lindsley’s reputation for featuring Nashville’s best top-notch local, regional, and National acts indeed remains; fueled in part by yet another collaborative effort with Lightning 100.
Since 1996 the weekly radio and World Wide Web broadcast, Nashville Sunday Night has showcased a variety of top talent from all ends of the contemporary music spectrum.
It’s particularly interesting to note the numerous emerging artists who have performed on NSN and have gone on to national prominence soon thereafter. Names like Train, David Gray, Ray LaMontagne , The Fray, and KT Tunstall, all performed there and almost immediately thereafter went nuclear on the national scene.
This is just a partial listing of the many outstanding contemporary artists who have been a part of the
Nashville Sunday Night broadcast, live from 3rd & Lindsley since 1996.
Nashville Sunday Night broadcast, live from 3rd & Lindsley since 1996.
Tin Pan South
Among the other special musical events 3rd & Lindsley participates in is the annual Nashville Songwriters Association International showcase, Tin Pan South, which wraps up tonight with a terrific lineup featuring, Butterfly Boucher, Katie Herzig, Trent Dabbs, and Matthew Perryman Jones.
Nashville Sunday Night takes this week off in recognition of the Easter holiday, but returns next week with yet another hugely notable performer who calls Nashville home, the immortal Leon Russell.
If you’re in town for any of these shows, or whenever you’re in Nashville, be sure to take advantage of this tremendous venue, where the food is as good as the music!
3rd & Lindsley is located at 818 3rd Avenue South; one half mile south of Broadway in Nashville. Visit their website for more details.
Tickets are typically available at the door, but for select shows, be sure to visit 3rd & Lindsley’s calendar page for advance sale tickets. Take it from a longtime fan of this venue, in light of the limited seating capacity, when they offer advance tickets for an artist you want to see, pick ‘em up; you don’t want to get shut out at the door. And you definitely don’t want to miss out on this treasure among Nashville’s musical landmarks!
* * * * *
finis
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
I Think Dylan Would be Proud
No...not THAT Dylan.
I’ll be expanding on this post later, when I have time, but now I’ve got a bunch of stuff I need to take care of in my offline life. I just wanted to take a minute to let those who care about this place know that at long last, actually two full years after beginning this project (and nearly four years after I was goaded into doing it), I have finally upgraded the design of my blog’s template, and will hopefully follow suit in my overall goal to upgrade my presence in this place that has been such a special part of my life for the better part of a decade.
Please look around and note the new, static pages in the horizontal navigation bar above. Two of the pages are merely updated versions of the linked info pages I had hosted myself before, but which now are a part of the blog itself, thanks to Google/Blogger finally adding the feature that Wordpress users had enjoyed for years.
For those previously unfamiliar, the ‘About’ and ‘Greatest Writs’ pages are, respectively, an introduction to my blog and a little bit about me, and a self-appointed ‘best of’ list of the posts I've written over the years about my life, family, and experiences.
Additionally, there are two new pages. ‘What Happen?’ is the definitive recap of how this blog got its name. I've also added a brand new Contact page, with a form from which you can throw out a general comment or message not necessarily pertaining to a post. This is also a great place to call me to the carpet on a typo or other unintentional misinformation that might have slipped through my fingers. I appreciate constructive criticism and welcome any other general comments you might have.
Still Workin’ on it
There are a couple of features that are still under construction, but which will both be completed soon. One is already on display: the Archive Story Index is a long-standing feature I added a few years ago, but haven't done a very good job of keeping current. It now it lists each AYBABTU post from May 2004 through the end of 2007, but I’ll be bringing it up to date shortly.
I'm also in the process of adding a detailed ‘Faves’ page, which will include a blogroll and site description of all my favorite folks on the Net, both from the ‘old neighborhood’ of Blogger.com, as well as the new friends I’ve made in the last couple years through my involvement with the hockey blogging community and on the social media phenomenon that is Twitter.
All that said, I hope you like the new AYBABTU. It’s been a long time coming, but for me, anyway, it's been worth the wait.
finis
I’ll be expanding on this post later, when I have time, but now I’ve got a bunch of stuff I need to take care of in my offline life. I just wanted to take a minute to let those who care about this place know that at long last, actually two full years after beginning this project (and nearly four years after I was goaded into doing it), I have finally upgraded the design of my blog’s template, and will hopefully follow suit in my overall goal to upgrade my presence in this place that has been such a special part of my life for the better part of a decade.
Please look around and note the new, static pages in the horizontal navigation bar above. Two of the pages are merely updated versions of the linked info pages I had hosted myself before, but which now are a part of the blog itself, thanks to Google/Blogger finally adding the feature that Wordpress users had enjoyed for years.
For those previously unfamiliar, the ‘About’ and ‘Greatest Writs’ pages are, respectively, an introduction to my blog and a little bit about me, and a self-appointed ‘best of’ list of the posts I've written over the years about my life, family, and experiences.
Additionally, there are two new pages. ‘What Happen?’ is the definitive recap of how this blog got its name. I've also added a brand new Contact page, with a form from which you can throw out a general comment or message not necessarily pertaining to a post. This is also a great place to call me to the carpet on a typo or other unintentional misinformation that might have slipped through my fingers. I appreciate constructive criticism and welcome any other general comments you might have.
Still Workin’ on it
There are a couple of features that are still under construction, but which will both be completed soon. One is already on display: the Archive Story Index is a long-standing feature I added a few years ago, but haven't done a very good job of keeping current. It now it lists each AYBABTU post from May 2004 through the end of 2007, but I’ll be bringing it up to date shortly.
I'm also in the process of adding a detailed ‘Faves’ page, which will include a blogroll and site description of all my favorite folks on the Net, both from the ‘old neighborhood’ of Blogger.com, as well as the new friends I’ve made in the last couple years through my involvement with the hockey blogging community and on the social media phenomenon that is Twitter.
All that said, I hope you like the new AYBABTU. It’s been a long time coming, but for me, anyway, it's been worth the wait.
finis
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