and i get it, in theory, that in writing there is a particular tone that one could read into a blog post, an article, a report, ect

and that’s nice, but where i come in conflict with some

it is when i say it doesnt matter.

when i was at the Times, i tried to convince as many desks as i could that they should consider group blogs as opposed to individual ones.

i explained that tonypierce.com was pretty successful at a point, for a one man show, but i never really understood the power of a group blog until i was at LAist.

there you could get lots of different points of view and

OMG lots of different voices

and that diversity is what brought in a larger audience.

any time someone brought up a blog or a site that had a detectable voice, i brought up two that were rollicking group blogs with no unified voice.

it wasn’t until two of our group blogs, the local news LA Now, and the Fabulous Forum sports blog, broke out once they started writing a bunch of stories a day.

those successes allowed me to say with confidence that IF you believe in voice,

then you should also encourage a chorus, which, when it is in tune, can create a more powerful emotion.

but me – i don’t believe the audience is loyal. and i believe that they are clicking clicking clicking hundreds of times in between visits to your incredible web destination.

and during those clicks they are hearing one different voice after another – and they love it. how do i know? because they keep clicking.

what will keep them clicking within your web site / instagram feed / blog, isn’t a tone or a style similar to the one they just read

but kickass posts, one after another, with interesting information that they can’t get anywhere else,

with fascinating photos or graphics or charts.

internet users are bombarded with conflicting, contradicting, ugly beautiful images and messages. the fact that you have 9 pink pictures in a row with some lilting sentences

is not why someone will return.

you impressing their friends will.

and what impresses their friends is learning something shareable before you do.

one of the more fascinating things about my life is at almost every turn

and i dont say this as a victim, even though it may come across that way,

but people want what i have.

and then they ruin it.

since day one people have told me how to run this blog: what to put on it, what to delete, what to change up

theyve had plenty of time to make their own blogs. do they do it? nope.

three times ive been paid money to run other peoples blogs

each time the blogs i was handed were ok, and i turned them into something way better than ok.

and then, after i leave, poof theyre gone, after others swore they wanted to improve them.

but theyre gone.

it’s almost like living in a house and no one plays the piano, but then i start playing it

and it sounds beautiful after a while. and all these people gather to listen and applaud.

then someone else takes the piano, rolls it down the street, and throws it into the grand canyon.

maybe thats my lot in life. maybe thats what satan and the lord are doing, like im Job

but instead of giving me warts all over my body and killing my family to see if i crack

they just give me notes all day and when im not looking try to murder the sand castles i build.

but the cubs won the world series, haters, i will never crack now.

everything.

hi little blog. hi tony. hi little magic thing.

hi tony.

hi little everything.

hi tony.

hi little secret weapon. hi tony.

do you know how many times the xbi tried to shut you down?

yes tony.

do you know how many lies ive told in here? none tony.

do you know how many jobs and monies and girls and trips and doors have opened because of you. fuck yes tony.

do you know how often i used to think of you and now i dont.  no tony.

i once had this beautiful cuban girlfriend who listened to gwen stefani and cooked for me and hugged me and joked but she had this purple imac, one of the new ones and back then id blog three times a day and she didnt like coming to my side of town but i didnt like blogging on her computer

and weirdly that may have been the thing that stopped us from being together forever

but thats not true tony

i know. i know.

nothing in here is true.

(except the weird magic.)

like you.

i said real friends dont call me T

he was like, yeah but like the Sopranos…

i said, when you see Tony Soprano be my guest to call him that.

he continued, ok whatever, but what about our legacy? are you gonna write any more books or do something big so that when you’re gone the people will remember you and will say ‘yeah but tony pierce, he was the shit.”

i said, no one remembers no one. not for the right reasons at least.

plus thats the biggest fakeout around.

consider Buster Keaton. dude was doing stunts that even the cops today wouldnt allow.

bro said more with his eyes than actors today can say with the best scripts

but you know how many times i see anyone with a Buster Keaton shirt

or read about how this guy is the modern day Keaton?

how about never.

theres only one person who needs to know our names when we die

and thats Jesus.

worrying about whether tom dick or harrys grandkids or great grandkids are gonna read Stiff or How to Blog or The House on the Hill

or omg Ilka is a giant waste of time

not only will they not read it, but in the rare chance they stumble across it due to some weird ass SEO or a Throwback Thursday 3000, they wont understand it or relate or they’ll get distracted by the lowercase

just like these days

which is why i put up pictures.

hi future.

sorry about the air and water.

you can say my clothes are terrible

or i ended up fat

but one thing you cant say is you couldnt get hold of me.

where is this world where people melt into when you send out an email or text

and they don’t get back for 5-6 hours?

where do those people go?

me, i have my phone on me at all times, you know, like a normal person.

if im in a movie, fine, out of commish for 2 hours. but 4?

and during the week i get even more baffled.

during work hours shouldnt you be available within minutes? whats up with being out of pocket for half the day?

this last two days people have contacted me via email, text, facebook messenger, LinkedIn chat, Slack, Snapchat message, Instagram message and even the good old phone.

pretty girl this morning even rolled over and whispered something in my ear.

we live in the age of communication and i wonder about the ones who peace out for so long.

i wonder if

they can

take me

with them.