Monday, May 21, 2012

Dickens Didn't Know the Half of It...


...for creative types, this is truly the best and worst of times....never in the history of the world has finding a receptive and appreciative audience been so easy...

 ...now is the era where
everybody creates...
Patti Smith

 ...that is, even if what you’re doing is so esoteric that only three or four people in the world could possibly appreciate it...solo upright bass instrumental interpretations of  obscure gangsta rap b-sides, expressionistic black chalk drawings of dolphins in bondage masks, cynical musings on yoga practice...in the past, the chances of those weirdos stumbling upon what you do, even if you could find a gallery, coffee shop, or magazine that’d let you put it on display, would be about nil...but, chances are, one or two of those people is on-line right now...

 No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
Samuel Johnson

 ...and, yet, the likelihood of getting paid for creative work grows ever slighter....(if Van Gogh were painting now, he'd likely feel less isolated, with people all over the world "liking" his art...but he'd still, probably, be broke)....I got fans all over the world, and, until recently, a person with fans all over the world could expect to have royalty checks rolling in....then, similarly, thanks to the virtual world, I’ve got friends all over the world...and, until recently, a person with that many friends had no problem finding a date for brunch...

i don’t understand: my ideas are universal
but my audience is five guys at the shell
station people just don’t get it
Andre Codrescu

...quit looking at the analytics for this blog a couple years ago...and glad I did...was getting too caught up in numbers of readers...or viewers...or visitors...or clicks....ended up using artificial means to get more people here, even if most stayed just long enough to take a glance and click away: gratuitous link-dropping, pornographic tags, posting every other day, whether or not I had anything worth saying...anything for these all-important digital marks of approval...

One of these days and it won’t be long, goin’ down to the valley and sing my song, sing it loud sing it strong let the echo decide if I was right or wrong...
Bob Dylan      

...finally decided to get all Bhagavad Gita-ish and forsake the numbers...simply do my best at putting something good out there, and try not to worry so much about the fruits of my actions..........which is not to say a little money wouldn’t be nice...

8 comments:

timethief said...

We all have experienced the uncontrollable addiction to statistics checking at one point in our blogging life.I'm not a beginner blogger and found early on that forsaking the numbers is a great way to remove stress. Success comes from producing content that engages readers and that's reflected in comments.

lesbarkeit said...

You are always wellcome for a brunch - free! Love the thought about VanGogh...

the walking man said...

Now I HAVE to go and look at the stats...nah there pretty much useless because I don't know what they mean.

You know cynical yogi you are at your best when you just let your hair down (well I personally imagine you don't have that much {length wise} to let down) and write.

You probably gathered by now that

a) I am too broken and fused in my spine to do yoga

and

b) I would break my neck and back all over again to get out of doing yoga.

But I have always been curious does a yoga class smell of lower intestinal output?

Meredith LeBlanc said...

*raises hand*
I too am guilty of checking the statistics. Now I just like to put my posts out to the Universe ~ let them be my face in the ether and go with the flow.

lucy said...

It is really amazing how 'connected' and yet disconnected we are.

I've called people I've met online "friends" - and I know from experience that can't be true. A friend is someone I've yelled at for being an asshole at least once.

Am I allowed to say asshole?

earthtoholly said...

Yes, you *do* have a lot of friends, drjay...you really rack 'em up on Google Friend and your FB page. Now if you were to publish a book for all those followers...hmmm.

Melissa said...

good post

kim said...

There aren't always bloggers that I'd pay to read. You are one of them that would break that trend for me. In case you're ever interested in who would purchase your work.