Mid-Week Doldrums
What do you write about when you have nothing to write about? It’s not as if there aren’t pressing concerns. There are pressing concerns everywhere, pressing so tight I’m wearing them like a turtleneck. The problem is there’s no particular urgency at the moment. Like some mutant fish living in the Gowanus Canal, I’ve become normalized to these strange, twisted times.
The four year anniversary of Hunter S. Thompson’s passing was last week. It occurred to me that if we were to chart the evolution of journalism into blogging, his gonzo journalism would sit right at the crossroads. He was, in a sense, the first blogger seen in terms familiar to blogging, using his own perspective and experience to contextualize his stories.
The New York post is dumping Liz Smith’s gossip column. They were paying her $125,000 to print her column. That buys a lot of Glenlivet.
Adam Carolla has a new podcast. It just started this week. I never heard his radio show but it recently got canceled. Now he’s hopping on the podcast bandwagon. So far, he’s dropping a show every morning.
I mention these two things to say that the decentralization of the media is continuing apace, accelerated by the demise of our mighty economy. While the media giants can’t easily outsource their media needs to Mumbai, there is also less and less reason to keep around bloated salaries for people who are no longer relevant (sorry Ms. Smith) and creators are discovering that they don’t have to play the big corporate media game (Mr. Carolla – number one podcast on iTunes so far this week).
Where is this all going to end up? I have no idea. I couldn’t fill a Dixie cup with my readership and, if I could, what would I do with them? I find this intriguing on an intellectual level, like Leo Bloom looking at Max Bialystock’s books. Except I haven’t found a way to game the system to my own ends. At the moment, I’m just plucking little tidbits of internet detritus. I’m just a holistic whale shark, mouth agape, sweeping through the dark digital waters. It’s Wednesday. I’m just swimming along.
What do you think?