did i wish you a happy valentines day

happy day. may you find love in all of the best parts of your life today.

as i wrote in my previous post, this morning i was shocked and amazed by the engagement announcement of americas most popular radio personality, mr howard stern.

because its my job and my love to spread the news of the day, i took it upon myself to let the good kids at metafilter know about todays first story of love, one of a freakishly tall, most would say unattractive, 50something man who successfully wooed an amazonian goddess to promise to be his forever.

unfortunately because it was still pretty early in the morning, most of the major newspapers and online sites hadn’t yet poured their first cup of coffee let alone opened up their RSS readers so for a while LAist was the only source telling this news.

so before i hit the hay i posted it on metafilter, despite knowing that linking to ones own blog, website or project, is not allowed. my thinking was that it would be allowed because at that time there was nobody else reporting on it yet.

the worse i thought would happen is a bunch of people would call bullshit, the link would change, the post would get deleted, and life would go on.

but metafilter is a strange beast. which is part of its charm but also part of the reason people hesitate from joining (and sometimes even reading) what i consider to be the best group blog on the web. basically my post was ridiculed, my character was called into question, and some claimed to be offended by my hyperlink and demanded that i owe them an apology.

some asked that my 6 year account be revoked.

and some in the crowd asked for the life to be taken from me and my flesh be served for supper.

i like those people.

anyways i did apologize for breaking the rule, i promised them that i wouldnt do it again and although some people totally got it, unfortunately it wasnt good enough for a few.

sometimes Buddah hold up a flower and everyone is enlightened, sometimes hes called a fat piece of shit get off the stage.

because ive been contributing to the web through various means using my own name for many years, it’s pretty easy for a my bad misunderstanding of a rule to spiral into a full on bash, once someone gets on google and sees my history of trying new things on the blogosphere, from selling links to my link page, to asking my readers to send me to aruba, to auctioning off my afro. if i piss people off, its very easy to collect ammunition on me and then use it against me.

plus my spellinggrammar is so retarded that the lazy can always simply jump on that one in a pinch.

its no wonder that far more popular bloggers, editors, and writers avoid message boards and refuse to put open comments on their blogs. but if you ask me thats not very web 2.0 of them. or courageous. or participatory. heres what i think i dont care what you think? how well has that worked for anyone?

usually i write this blog to the ladies of the house. ive said several times that the busblog serves one purpose and one purpose only, to get me laid. and thats true.

but on this post im whispering in the ear of any blogger out there or wannabe blogger or writer or storyteller or diarist or even commenter of a message board – dont let the group stop you from saying things, dont let the negative or critical people slow you down. obey the rules, but if you find out that you broke one, dont do it again. but keep doing things.

when you write there are two voices. one thats trying to tell you the story and the other thats telling you that you suck. some say the reason some of the old timey writers got drunk all the time was to quiet the latter voice.

when i first started this blog i got a lot of negative commentors and slowly they went away. at LAist theres 100 times the traffic and a fair share of people who are perfectly happy to tell me i suck and anything new im trying to do or different or outside their comfort zone is horrible and i should be shot.

because im old and crusty and black and a long suffering chicago cub fan, luckilly i couldnt give a shit what people say about me in the comments of this blog, that one, or any of em.

but i do worry about the kids.

it doesnt happen as much as it used to, but there was a stretch of time where i would regularly get people writing in saying how they admire me and are inspired by me and started blogging because of this blog. i know they see the comments that get written about me. and i notice when i see them stop blogging.

when people stop sharing their ideas or communicating or experiment with writing styles or stop trying to figure out whats possible on the web – and fear wins, then this whole gift of the internet is wasted.

i broke a rule on one of my favorite sites. my bad. seriously, my bad. but the reaction was so overwhelming that it made me think way differently about the site. but that too was the devil in my head trying to find an ideal moment to try to ruin something i love by whispering negative shit in my ear when im sleepy and trying to find the humor in the flames.

later today i will announce the 2007 Annas, the busblog award for the best bloggers of the previous year. last year xTx won for her very personal and wonderful blog at notimetosayit.blogspot.com .

this year its a three way tie, and the winners were easy to pick because they seriously dont give a fuck, or at least they dont appear to. which of course is the place you want to be when you write.

so that you have practice for when you’re walking around.

Update: After a 200+ comment Metatalk, the big man of Metafilter revoked his pardon and banned me after all. Even though i felt i was upfront with everyone and i did apologize, Matt doesn’t seem to think it was good enough and explained thusly, “Anyway, I don’t think Tony has taken it very gracefully here and could have been much more direct and upfront and simply apologized and a lot of people are pissed about it so I’m going to have to set his account to banned.”

Earlier in the thread I accepted y2karl’s suggestion for a self-imposed timeout, but theres politics in every walk of life. even in the threads of messageboards.

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