The other day I said out loud, wistfully, “I wish I had a blog”. Then I heard what I’d said and realized I could grant my own wish so easy.
Maybe I want a blog now that it’s the end of 2022, way past when it seems time to be blogging. They’re maybe obsolete and old crusty enough now for me to want to try to do it. I’ve never had a blog before. I read a few of my friends’ ones from the sidelines but never liked the feeling of reading from the computer screen enough to want to go deeper in. Blog, such a barf of a word.
In 2011 or 12 or something I sarcastically started a tw****r account to pass the time while driving back from North Dakota with my brother. It was fun being a twerp on there for all these years, but always felt like a joke that had gone on too long, and also it sort of accidentally developed into my mailing list, a useful business way for me to instantly announce to whoever was tuned in if I had a new record for sale on my website or some shows coming up or if I was selling my old pants on ebay or whatever. It became my mailing list and it never quite felt right.
It’s way past late, but I’m finally getting around to setting up this legit email list in another place, somewhere not built on exploiting us, it’s users, as the bought and sold product, numbed and shuffled around between advertisers. I don’t want to go off too much, it’s well established in beautiful articulate ways elsewhere, but yes, all the social medias that have infiltrated every deep aspect of our lives, they do not want what’s best for us. Like Oliver Sacks said, it’a “neurological catastrophe on a giant scale”. No thanks, let’s leave.
So, my idea here is to use this mailing list as basically what my tw****r had become, a free email that comes out whenever there’s something I think worth bugging you about. And then there’s the paid section where people get all those same updates, but also occasional writing that’s more substantial. Maybe early recordings of a thing I’m working on. Maybe photos or video. A “blog”, with good stuff. It might not be worth the $7 a month to you. I’ve never thought about charging for my writing content like this, but I think I feel OK about it since maybe the people reading this have also streamed many streams of my music basically for free and we’re living in a patreon world of artists scrapping it together however possible. I’m fine with my begging bowl.
I won’t be a super prolific emailer. I promise I’ll try to keep it excellent only.
Thanks for considering it. See you.
Phil