Thinkin’ `bout blogs and blogging all my way down the road…

…Blogs have become so pervasive yet misunderstood that I feel the need to explain my own approach to why I am doing it my own self these days. I don’t want to get into a bunch of definitions or recount the history of blogs- although there are plenty of books on blogging out there now that do that and more.

I’ll just say that from the political side to what I want to do and be involved with the best resource I have found is Aaron Barlow’s The Rise of the Blogosphere, in which he describes and gives credence to blogging as already being and having considerable potential to become even more so the “New Free Advocacy and Organizing Press”. Barlow compares the new partisan bloggers as being the modern day parallels to the pamphleteers of Revolutionary Era America. Or as I like to aspire: to the Tom Payne’s and Sam Adam’s… to the real Democrats of that time.

That said, as I try to work past the kinks of my own getting started and eventually immersed in all of what my blogging and related Web Presence can become, I also can say that as a lifelong semi aspiring and yet uncommitted occasional writer the Internet in general and Blogging in particular have certainly created a new avenue to get around traditional gatekeepers and turned anyone who wants to into combination writer-editor-publisher with the click of a mouse or touch on a touch pad. As many would point out- with mixed results and varying kinds of quality and trustworthiness.

So I admit it: for now I am simply bypassing the traditional gatekeepers to me trying to “be a writer” and go forward as an admitted and proud to be partisan in the ongoing quest for “ a more perfect union,” or a greatly improved and perhaps almost revolutionarily transformed American Democracy. For more specifics on this see:
http://dialogdemocracy.org/old_epgtds_defined_ffmission_statement.htm

Laying low and working on www.dialogdemocracy.org for a few days...

...but I am also just checking out how Explorer works away from the nightmare that my home internet connection has become. Did anyone see the interview of John McCain flinching during an interview when the reporter questioning him gestured with his hands for effect while asking his question? I really think, with all the other issues being equal, that, protests about how young and fit and virile this guy tries to present himself that he is simply too freaking old to be President and that his candidacy is him "taking one for the team" and that should he happen to win he will just be the front man for the Cheney-Sonnie Dubbies Neocons who will remain highly operative in a next Republican Administration. Be very wary of the VP selection at the Re-Pube convention. It could be very telling about how serious the concerns at the highest levels of the Re-Pube leadership are about McCains health, competence, and likelihood of being genuinely "in charge" of a New Neocon Administration.

Blogging for friends and family first…

Tuesday, July 08, 2008, 10:10 AM

…yeah sort of that but sort of not- but what the heck. It’s going to be a fine line at first because I do want to slowly contact some old peeps and see who back their somewhere “down the windy halls of friendship” (Neil Young in “Thrasher”- a great tune which by the way I do and soon will be made available for download…) just might want to or be willing anyhow to get involved in either some of this here Blogging or the larger effort of getting this whole thing of great social and political organizing import (with apologies this time of course to Janis from her seminal spoken preamble to “Mercedes Benz”

As I am doing this blogging I am thinking to myself as I quote old songs and movie lines and even try to give credit where it’s due when I remember it’s not my own line- cuz, like in some cases I have incorporated and imbedded some lines from “the kultchuh” so seamlessly that I don’t even know they came from anywhere but my own rich and fertile verbal skills- anyway, I’m thinking I could be linking folks right to those classic old tunes. And someday I will do just that…

Now more stuff culled for the Blog about the Blog and why Blog anyway…

Moved here 7/7/2008 6:52 AM…

dialogD Blog and Web Site Missions and Descriptions

O.K.- the dialogD Blog is going to be a very personal melded with the political ongoing journal of my research and various “takes” on the current political season but more importantly the various larger issues with respect to the overall state of our American Democracy as we approach first the November election and then ultimately the change in leadership, one way or another, in the Executive branch of our national government.

My Blogging effort is meant to be an ongoing communication effort as well as a free form free verse call to action on various issues and activist organizing that will be called for throughout. Whenever in the course of this Blogging process I come across a person or organization that is, from what I can tell, on the same page and/or actively doing something or writing about how to get going on what needs to be done about the crisis in our Democracy and collective aspirations for as Free and civil a society as possible- well I am just going to go ahead and contact those people and organizational entities and see about enlisting them in the organized civic and entrepreneurial activism that I propose throughout the dialogD Blog and Larger Web Presence… www.dialogdemocracy.org.

*

The main way the Web Site will differ from the Blog is that it will offer more lengthy essays, position papers on issues, calls for political and organizing action, and the occasional bits of partisan bombast on the particulars being called for throughout the dialogdemocracy.org and any miscellaneous related other efforts or venues.

www.dialogdemocracy.org will also try to provide a workable organizational and central fundraising structure for what is being called for and proposed.

*

A last couple thoughts on the “Daily Thou Regimen” (which, note to dear readers if ever there are any, refers to the effort to churn out at least a thousand little words words words each and every day- whether I need to or feel like it our not):

· Even though I don’t want to get too carried away with journalizing it is in point of fact again partly what Blogging itself is except that it is making your journal type writing (to a point and to an extent usually) for potentially anyone and everyone to see that you can get to pay attention to it. So the Daily thou is being revived specifically to kind of just get the whole doing this everyday thing back to the forefront and then meld into the ongoing real work, writing, and maybe activist entrepreneurial organizing efforts.

· And hopefully my own place in all of what that can be about and lead to just harmoniously works itself out and gives me enough of a “little something for myself” for me to be happy- so I don’t have to worry about where it leads- into the brush or out of the brush it don’t matter… that is what I have to let go and just breathe into about where I am positioned right now.

· But I do occasionally have the momentary flash of epiphenal insight. And when I have those somewhat rare and all to fleeting thought flashes on whatever the fuck- why at those times I want my efforts to be about things like the following to simply surge to the surface and out:

· The ideas of the Web Site and the various kinds of Bogging (ooh… one of them there Freudian slips that I love so good… meant of course to say “Blogging” just then) that can and will go along with it- and the implied communication and conscilience and collaboration that have to go along with all of it…

As much as I know what I am trying to do I sometimes forget that ultimately it is still me trying to be a writer- whether I get paid or not or “make it” or not or even if what I produce gets read or not. But I have to find a way again to get to a point where I have my strong voice that transcends all those ifs ands or big buttes about all of that. And finding my voice right here right now is what everyday forced journalizing and Quickwrites on various topics as they come up is specifically designed and meant to do.

Another week of seeking some traction… yeah traction… that’s the ticket…

Blog posts for Monday, July 07, 2008, 6:35 AM.

I realize as I get to this second week of me at least trying to actively participate in the Blogging process that the very purpose of what I am attempting is daunting. And I have a hard time just getting past the shore break of turbulence and undertow that are right there all the time (real or imagined) at the point of “just wading in”. I think if I can just fight through the resultant feelings of fear, insecurity, and insignificance that I might be able to get “out there,” to where I can start to just be doing it and not worrying about how I’ll seem or look once I’m doing it.

And now from previous days and times…

Now it’s The 4^th Of July…

… that marked the official relaunch for my dialogdemocracy.org Web Site and Blog efforts. Between now and the November 3^rd, 2008 U.S. election we will be celebrating the end for now of the Neocon Bush Cheney two term fiasco. Of course the two stars of the administration, Old Dick and Sonnie Dubbies can’t come back personally to haunt us (at least not as public figures leading the Executive Branch of our supposedly Democratic government almost exclusively on behalf of their upper echelon corporate executive class capitalist cronies)… but if serious re-democratization of our entire society, culture, and economy doesn’t begin in earnest with this Presidential election season then I fear the Neocon Nutjobs could be back- and possibly even scarier, worse, more harmful to America’s and the world’s people than even these guys have been. And that’s saying a mouthful.

So my plan for the Blogging and the political activism is to do a formal relaunch- maybe with a new main name (“dialogdemocracy” is kind of dry and not all that catchy don’t you think?) but I will worry about minutia like names once I am really operating semi efficiently on actually just doing this thing on a consistent basis and seeing where that leads.

Official re-launch date was 4th `O July...

... But that was a Holiday but symbolically still the beginning of getting this whole thing started is at hand. I will attempt total immersion in my work over the next couple weeks or so window of opportunity I have to do so. I have to let the tech side just come to me and evolve. That's not my main strength but I do have to improve my proficiency base as I go along.

Very steady regular posting and work on the main dialogD Web Pres is the first priority. And starting to get more into the .comm side of it all and linking to stuff. All the next level.

You know, tires are like your feet only on a car and all...

7/3/2008 1:54 PM

…So, as I am gaining traction I get a better sense of where to take this. How to link over to the main dialogD WebPres and why and when. And I am ready to start the active communications phase of this effort pretty soon= first with the friends from around the land and planet and life then also with the presumed kindred spirits I find in my reading and investigating of what’s going on out there. At some point I can see this effort being routinely a part of every day a couple two tree times easy. Until then I will just try and keep grinding just like Tiger at the Open. Know what I am saying?

Time now to go see a man about a second hand dehumidifier…

Working on gaining that enigmatic traction...

Wednesday, July 02, 2008, 10:48 AM…

WiFi at Starbucks blows…

So who is surprised? There for fee T-Mobile kept superceding other attempts to connect to available unencrypted networks. Power to the largest player. Like always.

Now to some general edited and culled material that is perhaps appropriate for the dialogD and all related more personal Blog efforts.

*

7/2/2008 11:15 AM

Before getting to the gleaning of my recent writing it’s time to consider the “True Alternative Nature” at the core of what I am proposing throughout dialogD’s Blog and Web presences. A few points:

· In Cleveland, the two Weekly Independent Alternative Rags have recently announced a merger- or their parent mega alternative corporate parents did. So the Cleveland Free Times and Scene will finally be one all encompassing mega merged conglomeration of all things alternative. Yeah yeah yeah- right right right. The underground alternative scene has for the most part become so abysmally apolitical and just hipster dufus pop culture oriented that it’s minor political critique tones are by definition already marginalized and irrelevant. Just like the genuine outside the mainstream alternative progressive democracy movement is for the most part. So it’s not like the Alternative Media scene is the cause, or root of the larger problem.

· So if we are to develop alternative paths into our collective futures than those provided by International Global Corporatist Hegemony (and it’s political PR spun democracy subsidiaries) as usual we will have to do better in the next couple to twenty years of un-marginalizing legitimate alternatives as we have, say, since the Summer of `68.

*

And now folks, the edited gleanings…

5/16/2008 1:52 PM

A couple of idle ramblings now and I will be free somewhat for the weekend. Although one is never truly free when sharing one’s kitchen cabinetry with a Ratatouille wanabe.

A quote heard on NPR by some fellow in the know talking about the Internet and other digital media’s potentially revolutionary effect on Democracy with a big D:

“It’s 10:00 AM on the morning of the first day of that revolution…”

I will try my best to find out who said that and give credit when I quote him. And that’s where I think I come in. Web 3.0 Democracy Content, Advocacy, Organizing, Community Outreach, and Solidarity Building. (or will it ultimately be Web 4.0 or 5.0 by the time I get to consistent producin’?) But whatever, that’s the crux of my ticket.

*

The Name Game

Some possible renaming seems to be in order partly just because I am sick of “dialogdemocracy.org” and partly because I think the time for merely talk, or words, or books and articles- or collections of such is pretty much past. This has to be a convergence, a concilience thing, a solidarity movement in the real world around some of the content I and many many others put out or bring together… and in terms of my contribution in one place on my Blogs and related Web Presences.

So, naming possibilities:

· Alter-Blog

· Outside the Main Stream (OTMS) Alter-Blog

*

5/12/2008 10:24 AM

What I am doing now is gearing up for more of a June 1^st or maybe even more officially a Fourth `O July serious enough launch to the Blogging/dialogD (hopefully with a new and better name for branding purposes by then) efforts that I see at that point as having a First Phase- or, perhaps better: Phase One- cycle that starts with the ramping up to the conventions and the eventual November General Election and then is in full stride as the decision on who will follow Bush the Younger into the Presidency and what the climate of the country, the Congress, and the economy all are as we move towards the Inaugural Gala Season and the new Presidents “First One Hundred Days”.

That gives me long enough to establish myself, make an impact, and hopefully have me on a “Path With Heart” into my personal future on multiple levels as I proceed apace “as the way opens” from here. And tis truly not all about making money from “all of this” but it is about trying to find a way for that aspect of life also to be taken care of in a way that is harmonious with me being “T-Bone at his best” and in harmony with my true inner nature and soul.

Sooooo…

*

5/8/2008 11:58 AM

So ain’t it surprising, how time and ultimately life, just slip away. Listen to the blues, they’re playing. And listen to what the blues, are saying. (it’s Willie…)

*

5/6/2008 9:12 AM

So when it comes to my work I am fairly optimistic that I have gotten my thoughts together on writing and blogging and monetizing myself creatively for the ongoing “I don’t plan on retiring- from anything I do” stage of life as I get older from here assuming I don’t corpseded out all of a sudden and boom I’m over just like everybody else is over who is already, you know, like, dead and all.

Sooo… I am thinking that the key to my blogging is for me to be that guy who brings a specific revolutionary activist agenda to the liberal left blogging community and makes my own content the central driving aspect to the blogging I do. This crap about just being a parasitic commentator on the MSM and the mainstream politics and business as usual world is fine- and a big step in terms of regular citizens actually having a voice of any kind again- but that path is not in itself going to lead to any huge and needed and long overdue changes in that whole “Mainstream” power grid.

In any case it is “my blogging for democracy Web 3.0 (beta) convergence consilience space” thing that is going to make me my niche, and eventually that whole thing is maybe the only hope- if it can be harnessed and utilized- to actually mobilize a whole new kind of wide ranging and multi faceted movement.

In any case- I am positioned to do my thing on it somewhat over the next couple two tree months with the idea that it takes at least six months of producing to actually get noticed…

*

5/1/2008 9:21 AM

I have to say it’s up to me to find a better path and this summer is the transition time. Some reason to believe, be, and create on many levels. I need revival, I need rescue, I need the whole renewal package.

*

And of course the idea of making a palpable difference in the big picture issues is almost nil- and that is the reason, I think, that so many idealist activist types from those fabulous sixties ended up too depressed to drool as time passed and their delusions of grandeur became more blatantly ludicrous…

Sometimes I am right there- with Abbie and Phil and I don’t know who all else.

*