10 Years In The Blogosphere

10 Hamal - Year 1389

That's right - I've been blogging for 10 years now, pretty much non-stop. Back in 2000, I had never heard of 'blogs'. A few of my old high school friends that I had kept in touch with throughout the 1990s were more clued-in to cyber-stuff than I was. They started up a weblog where we could stay in touch and post about topics that interested ourselves. They invited me to join in January or February, but I wasn't sure about the blogging thing and delayed for a little while. I finally joined up in March 2000--mainly just commenting on what the others had posted.

The page they created was called Triptych Cryptic and it's still going, albeit with only C-Dog and Bone Daddy at the helm. I think there were seven of us posting there at T.C.'s peak. I really enjoyed being there for a while--it was our own little corner of t'internet. Most of us started up our own solo blogs as well. It was C-Dog who encouraged me to 'start a blog about prog-rock'..and so, in September 2000, with his help, I came up with 21st Century Schizoid Man, dedicated to all things music and most things prog-rock. C-Dog and I scanned in some great album covers and he pasted them together to make a groovy backdrop. He also put together a great banner and added both into the blog template. It looked brill, until he was moving and packed up his PC. I didn't have a copy of the jpegs and they disappeared. I joked for a while that it was the big, bad record companies keeping a striving prog-geek under their collective thumb, but no, it was much more mundane than that.

I kept "Schizoid Man" going for four years, while also posting at "Triptych..". When I moved to England in 2004--I found I had less time to post and to be honest, I was starting to grow a bit tired of "Schizoid Man"s format, even though I had changed the template a couple of times. Over at T.C., there were some personality clashes, which seem inevitable in any group effort (bands, casts of films and plays, etc.) and it soured the mood a bit. I decided to stop "Schizoid Man" in May 2004 and I left the T.C. fold shortly after. I whittled down the "Schizoid Man" posts to roughly 50 and let it float around in the aether. You can still find it, if you're looking for it. Not to be confused with a newer blog by another 'Merican ex-pat, who seems to be of a conservative, right-wing slant and enjoys writing screeds about Obama's health-care plan. I suppose Crimso fans appear in all stripes. Hey-ho. I also changed my nom d'internet from "Mo" (short for 'Molasses', my T.C. nick-name) to Sly Stoner, an hommage to psychedelic soul genius Sylvester "Sly Stone" Stewart...and also 'cos Bone Daddy said I had a sly sense of humour.

I thought about stopping blogging altogether, but I still liked the idea of a group blog. With that in mind, I invited Pixie, my mate Singing Bear and a few others I met during my time at the Flaming Lips BBS. Only Pixie and Bear signed on for definite and Pond Of Tunes was born! I initially wanted to name it Ocean Of Sound, after David Toop's book about ambient music, but I found another blog had already used that title. P.O.T. lasted for about two years and it was a lot of fun--the highlight being our spamming a spam-bot called 'Vicky', who kept leaving irritating comments about real estate. We found her site and counter-spammed. That was hilarious...she even started up an 'anti-Pond of Tunes' blog. The ultimate flattery. Our collective interest began to wane and I ended up deleting P.O.T. early in 2006, while Bear started up his own blog.

Once again, I thought about packing it in, but I thought I'd have another go at a group blog and so "Blog Is Not.." was created, with Pixie supplying the excellent title (referencing Andy Votel's Folk Is Not A Four-Letter Word collection), as well as my new-new handle, The Purple Gooroo. Bear was back on board and I invited my brother, the illustrious Aloicious P. McGinnis, who then joined up and has yet to post. I think of him as a 'silent partner'. We started up in June 2006 and we're still here....well, with a few changes. Bear decided to strike out on his own pretty much permanently in 2008 and he's had a series of blogs, the latest being the great Grown Up Backwards. This blog has essentially become a one-critter operation..so in ten years I've sorta come full circle. I reckon I'll continue for another two years, 'till 2012, then call it a day...as I've got the podcast to do. Facebook and Twitter eat up a lot of my time now as well. One never knows, though--I may change my mind and keep on bloggin'.