Tom Watson

The Sunday Feed

Lazy Sunday breezes, when the pm on the clock doesn't necessarily mean morning is over. We keep it easy and drop in some recent reads before heading outside with a book and something cool:

Even in the Madison Square Park of 2009, with its vestiges of boom era yuppiedom still in bloom as the party ends, James Wolcott finds a witty way to continue his recent (and vastly entertaining) obsession with American Ballet's prima ballerina on a summer afternoon. Mr. W is attempting the rarely attemped high-wire blogging feat of expertly promoting his wife's new novel whilst launching the gorgeous Veronika Part to superstardom and beyond. If any one can pull it off, he can. (And please do order The Bird Catcher by Laura Jacobs).

Speaking of balancing acts, Lance Mannion's been walkin' on a wire for years, attempting the bridge the unbridgeable with posts on human relations between the sexes. Now, he's off on his yearly family sojourn to the Cape - but before decamping for the seaside, he filed the 512th in the Mannionesque series on how women view men who are viewing women, viewed by a blogger of considerable viewing experience. This one's part deux of the world's most intelligent analysis of The Hangover - grab another cuppa and settle in.

Blue Girl doesn't know it (and indeed, no one seems to have noticed!), but I'm on day 35 of an everyday blogging challenge inspired by her own successful series of writing exercises. Freshen the chops. Find something to say that you normally wouldn't. Exercise and discipline for those six-pack writing abs. Poke.

Speaking of the installment plan, the prolific Dan Leo is on part 151 of his Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven series, this one improbably featuring Cape May, Nancy Sinatra,and Heaven Hill bourbon.

Before her blog break, the fab Ms. Peel posted an epic on British train travel humor that had me in mind of some of the classic Holmesian timetable consultation. Oh, to suffer Ms. Peel's travails: "...just try going from Oakham to Swaffham, the Mutt and Jeff of market towns. You can get to Swaffham, via Peterborough, but the trains only run late in the day - not very helpful at all."

Meanwhile, the Siren rises to defend Manhattan Melodrama by way of Johnny Depp's latest pirates flick (transported to inland Prohibition capers) - which is to say, she finds another great hook for writing about the brilliant Myrna Loy.

Sir Facebook, the Blog Slayer

Everybody I know blogs on Facebook. Well, not everyone. And they're not blogging per se. Not officially; it wouldn't be sanctioned by the governing bodies.

No, what they're doing is keeping link-rich journals of ideas and thoughts and news that they update several times a day, inviting comments and conversation from a community of users with similar interests. So they're ... journaling ... writing ... linking .... sharing ....keeping a daily log of thoughts and activities on the web. A sort of web log.

Thousands of 'em. People who don't know what Typepad or Wordpress are, as well as people who are ignoring their perfectly good Typepad and Wordpress log-ins for this - dare we say - fun, connected publishing platform.

[Twitter time out! Twitter time out!]

OK, yes I know Tweeting is the new blogging, Miss Digerati. No need to assail me in 140 characters or less. And cool your tinyurls for a second, willya? No one's dissing your platform of choice. Twitter is clean and neat and simple and open - perfect for the top ten percent of the top ten percent of users who are extremely comfortable with working the pipes of new media themselves (and scores of copycat politicians, marketing pretenders and celebrity flacks). So keep up the banter and the conversation over there. I like it too! (Even if growth is flattening out). But if you could do everyone one simple favor and de-couple your Twitter accounts from your Facebook log-ins, please? The myriad @ and RT jargon is slowing down what is quickly becoming the go-to conversation for the slightly-less-wired-than-thou crowd.

[Twitter time out ends]

Back to this blogging question: is Facebook killing the run-of-the-mill personal blog? Well, maybe not dead - but it's making a dent. Take three of my favorite blogging voices: the venerable Lance Mannion, everybody's favorite Blue Girl, and the ardent Viscount LaCarte. The Viscount - and I don't think it's a crime on the level of Ed Whelan's infamous outing to say the "Viscount" is one Michael Versaci, a great music fan and a fun dude to grab a beer with - anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the Viscount's most recent post on what was, back in the glory days, a well-trodden patch of XML, covers (briefly) the inauguration of Barack Obama. In blog years, that's the 1950s. In Facebook/Twitter years, we're lookin' at flying pterodactyls all over Manhattan. Yet there's the Viscount himself (as Michael, go ahead and friend him, tell him I sent ya) blogging like a fiend on Facebook - in short form, like the old days - riffing on Joni Mitchell, the First Amendment, and David Bowie and arguing up a storm.

Now, take Lance and Blue Girl. Both are still regular bloggers. Both of 'em feed that monster almost daily. Both have loyal readers and commenters. And yet...they're also blogging like fiends on Facebook. Some good stuff, too - short form, with tons of video and links and conversation. Indeed, yesterday, Blue Girl (whose real name is ... oh no you don't, I know the rules) posted on Facebook about this very question:

Is Facebook killing blogs? You bloggers out there worried about that? Have you stopped reading the blogs you always read after you signed up here? Is maintaining your blog harder because you feel no one's reading cuz they're taking quizzes on Facebook? I'd hate to see my favorite writers close up shop because of this social networking phenomenon. It would be such a loss.

The answer was pretty much "yes, to all of the above" - with one big caveat: lots of bloggers are cross-posting their links to Facebook and simply extending the conversation there. As Blue Girl noted, "I've already connected with some new great, creative people so that's definitely a positive." And BG linked to a cranky post by (the more than occasionally cranky) blogger Bob of Unbearable Lightness fame, who ranted thusly:

I think that horrid, yet ubiquitous internet social networking hive, "Facebook," is killing blogs.  Pre-Facebook I post on becoming a gramps and I woulda got 30 plus comments, easy. My readership and hits are down and I blame Facebook. Well, Facebook and perhaps my less than scintillating writing these days ...

I'm not whining as much as observing. I'm whining a little, I guess. Facebook, as a social networking site, is less narcissistic than a blog in concept, in execution maybe not much different, but it is certainly egalitarian and exclusive at the same time. Maybe that is what the internet cruiser and content producer wants these days. Who knows. I'm going on a one day at a time program with this blog to see if I stay engaged or just give it up to the droning beehive of the Faceborg Collective. 

There is a natural tendency of long-time bloggers to think of themselves as pioneers, as leaders. Sure, it's the self-anointed flavor but what the heck, we stepped forward in '04 or '05 and took a stand and wrote thousands of words! These pissant social media types join Facebook, post their crummy thoughts, post their hideous videos, and start this massive conversation online. The nerve.

And yet, if you study closely some of the really early daguerreotypes of blogging, you'll see something that looks really familiar - frequent stacks of really short posts, laden with links and the occasional comment, knitting discreet communities into lively conversations. It's just that the masses have taken to this phenomenon now, in their Faceborg Collective and I think you have to ask: is that such a bad thing?

In any case, you've probably noticed a big uptick in production on This Old Blog. It's 'cos I have to have a place to develop some content ... that I can post over on Facebook.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Blogger

Why does time seem to be moving in the opposite direction? This blog turns five years old today, and yet it seems younger, knocked free of the constraints of its earlier years - a time when every other post (by statute) contained the term "President Bush." Yes, five years since I plugged my email address into Typepad and started to let fly in this little neighborhood. Sure, go ahead. Congratulate me! Hundreds of thousands of words have passed between us during this epoch, our new epistolary age. Oh, the conversations. I wouldn't trade 'em. Even got a book out of it. Now, "blogging" is a relative term. Some of us "blogged" vociferously on Usenet in the 90s. Some of the geezers I know were even known to hold forth on dial-in bulletin boards in the 80s. Oh, and a fair number of us started webzines approximately 37 seconds after the release of the first commercial web browser. Still. Five years is a time, for a blogger. This particular place is basically the blogging hub for this age-defying blogger - personal home base. I also "blog" (that is to say, write) here, and here, and here, and here. And oh yeah, here (with some of my more culturally adept pals). Oh, and here - if 140 characters or less counts as a post. Yes, and here, if social networks make the grade. So, five years gone yet things appear to be age-reversing in some strange digital alchemy. Perhaps it's the new national leadership and its freshening breeze. Or the spiralling economy and its effect of making every choice that much more simple. I'm not sure. But I'm blowing out the candles any way. Five years ago, I jumped into the blogging thing with both feet and started this little conversation. Thanks for coming along. But I was so much older then - I'm younger than that now. I'm sure you feel the same way...

Vote, Damn Ye!

I've been bullied. Hectored. Ridden hard and put to bed wet. "Gently reminded." Cajoled. Spammed. Facebooked. Twittered. Tweeted. Retweeted. Feedburnered and Bloglined into a state of bruised digital aphasia. In short, my brain's been blog-battered, splattered all over Manhattan.

We're talking of course about the Weblog Awards, 2008 version. So many terrific nominees. So many friends. So many emails and coquettish dropped hankies. If bloggy self-promotion is a cause, then some of my best blogging buddies are "CauseWired." (Ha! That'll teach you to self-promote around here).

So please, do me a favor - go out and vote for all these worthies. They are all wonderful and deserving of the million-dollar prize that comes with finishing...oh wait...of the little blog badge bling thing that apprises the rest of the world of their worthiness. Seriously, I read these blogs on a weekly basis and I can't think of anything their authors would appreciate more (short of a five-dollar PayPal tip) than your vote.

And the Weblog Awards and its sponsor will appreciate the traffic - the contest is being underwritten, it appears, by GotSpot.com, a site that is searching for the "Sexiest Soccer Mom Ever!" - which will certainly be of intense interest to all the feminists up for awards!

First among equals is the redoubtable Robert Stein - because there's nothing so ironic and just plain entertaining as a legendary editor in his 85th year on this planet being nominated for "Best Up and Comming" blogger. Yep, Bob's getting the hang of this commentary thing. He's also one of several nominees who are also contributors at newcritics, I'm happy to say.

So please cast your ballots for the hilarious Jon Swift in the humor category (and give another look-see at his great round-up of best blog posts of 2008 whilst you're at it).

And try and go all Mayor William J. Daley for Blue Girl in the Best Diarist vote, will ya - so I can avoid being lumped in with her "lazy, apathetic and good-for-nothing friends." There's no one more deserving than Kathleen of Diary of a Heretic for Best Literature Blog, clearly. Uh-oh. Unless, it's the stylish Maud Newton. Better split yer vote there, fellas. They're both newcritics.

Go and vote for  Shakesville for Best Liberal Blog - it's a great community of writers led by the awesome Melissa McEwen. Then come back the next day and click on my buddy Taylor Marsh, who never backs down. Then return the following day and vote for Digby's brilliant Hullabaloo, a guide to political sanity.

In Best Individual Blogger I voted for the clever Lindsay Beyerstein, and for Best Major Blog, I split my vote between Balloon Juice and The Moderate Voice. And for best blog, I went with my friend Ben Smith at Politico.

I've probably missed someone - and that person will undoubtedly let me know about it. So vote early and vote often. And get these (wonderful and talented and worthy) bloggers off my back!

Odds & Sods

Things have been a bit light in these parts of late, but I've actually been writing quite a bit in some other locales, so here's a handy pocket guide to some of the headlines:

Over at newcritics, I posted a review of Twisted Head, a hilarious and cutting memoir by the actor and writer Carl Capotorto. You may remember Capotorto as “Little Pauli” in The Sopranos, but there was nothing of the mythical mob glamor about his childhood in the Pelham Parkway section of the Bronx. Capotorto was the youngest child of a family dominated by a father with a violent temper, and the book’s title comes from the literal translation of Capotorto - “twisted head” - which seems so perfectly suited to the temperament of Philip Vito Capotorto. Highly recommended.

I've started blogging at TechPresident and Personal Democracy Forum. Here's a piece on President-Elect Obama's transition site vs. the ideas at Change.org, one of the platform I wrote about in CauseWired: "If President-elect Barack Obama and his transition team are looking for a model that uses the power of social networks and citizen democracy to open up government, they ought to bring their own homepage - Change.gov - and replace the g-o-v with a little o-r-g."

At onPhilanthropy, I wrote about Obama's online organizing and what it might mean to the social sector: "In a victory that holds deep lessons for how nonprofit organizations and cause-driven ventures will organize volunteers and build support in the future, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States Tuesday in a near-landslide victory keyed by state-of-the-art social networking and online organizing."

Finally, over at CauseWired.com - where my book blog is evolving into a new start-up consulting and online publishing business (more on this soon) - I experimented with a bit of video, a vlog on some of the big themes in CauseWired: let's go to the videotape:

Postadelic

I've never been called blogalicious before, but if the shoe fits...

This Time and Place

There are sites out there where the callous bashing of others down deep in the comments goes without notice, where voices are cut off and censored and bullied; this little site is not one of them.

This presidential race is a tough one on the left - a very tough one, to use a weak but available modifier - and passions are deeply stirred. Anger builds and spreads and steams over the side of the cup. And folks who might normally converse pleasantly about the general state of the world fling vituperation a bit too casually. At least for my taste.

So let's go open kimono on a few things around here. We haven't done that for a while, and there are lots of  welcome newcomers - some of whom are passionate Hillary backers, while others adore Barack. (Still others dig McCain or no one at all).

First, this is my blog - it's entirely an iconoclastic view, my own perception of reality. No one pays me to write it, and all editorial judgments are mine. You don't have to agree; indeed, agreement here is kind of rare. But let's try to argue about it with civility.

Secondly, I support Hillary Clinton for president. It's been that way around here for a year. I'm not part of her campaign, have never been paid a nickel for what I've written, and have nothing material to gain from my support. Further, that support is based on my judgment on who'd make the best president. I've tried to make the argument agreeably - sometimes, I've failed. Sometimes my candidate and her campaign have let me down. Many times, her grace and stamina have amazed me. And as of today, I believe she's the best candidate.

Third, that may change.

Fourth, I admire Barack Obama and have said it here many times. He is accomplished, a fine writer, and his heart's in the right place, as best as I can tell of a talented politician running for national office. Just because I'm pro-Clinton doesn't mean I'm anti-Obama. (By the by, I don't despise Senator McCain, either - more about that at some future date). If I fail to fall out in ecstasy over a particular political speech, don't count me as the enemy of hope. If he wins the nomination in Denver, I'll support the Senator for President.

Finally, about those comments. To my way of thinking, comments are the life's blood of a good blog. My posts are starting points for the conversation; sometimes they're full essays, other times the barest throat-clearing tarted up with a few links. I'm interested in what the small community of users has to say. I ask that you keep it civil, and generally you have for more than four years. (Though I've lost it a few times myself). I don't really police the comments, but I do wade in as much as I can. Let me repeat: keep it civil. Try to keep the name-calling off the forms (a little cussin' is a-okay with me). No libel. No threats. No bullying. There are some long-time regulars here, so if you're new, treat 'em like you'd treat Norm in the corner seat at that neighborhood bar you just walked into.

The rough-and-tumble of politics is welcome - I fairly revel in it. Indeed, I've taken vicious body blows here from some of my closest friends and relatives - and lived to respond. Across many of the more popular political blogs, the level of discourse has dropped to some rat-infested subterranean slime. Let's keep the drainage level higher here. Now let's get back to it. I'll start: Obama sucks. McCain's the anti-Christ. Go Hillary.

A Pity Beyond all Telling

This harsh race for the Democratic nomination has boiled well beyond the melting point of igneous rock, and today's meltdown - by the erstwhile king of the netroots bloggers, no less - is no cooler. Indeed, the intemperate screed launched by Markos Moulitsas, founder of the DailyKos, singed every Democrat who read it and had to give those of us who battle it out online a reason to pause (or in one case, to purr at a pat on the head). Put on your asbestos suits and read what Kos said about the campaign of Senator Hillary Clinton:

She is willing -- nay, eager to split the party apart in her mad pursuit of power.

This sad embarassment has me eager, nay, desperate for another path. I'm sick of fighting nasty Democrats 'round here. Besides, it's St. Patrick's Day and as MA Peel reminds me, "something in the Celtic soul that has a natural affinity for the complex and the poetic."

So we need a third way, and I don't mean Al Gore at the convention (though, for the first time I might welcome a compromise candidate in this mess) - I'm talking culture. The fab Ms. Peel, good Irish lass that she is, has a great up over at newcritics titled Irish Altered States. She plumbs the film Kings from Tom Collins, and the play The Seafarer, by Conor McPherson. Here's a taste, but head over and leave your thoughts:

Can all these Irish souls be in such constant pain that they need to be continously anesthetized? I don’t know if that’s how McPherson and Collins see it. Some of the characters dance around stereotypes, but then become more dimensional. As for the cosmic root of the drinking–the centuries of oppression idea is not so far-fetched. It’s certainly part of what created the Irish epithet: “their wars are happy and all their songs are sad.”

To someone on the outside, it’s hard not to see an underlying sadness in these daily lives, yet you admire them for getting on with it all, as best they can.

To those on the outside of this political blogging whirl, those of us engaged in the warfare of words must also feel some of that underlying sadness - the Irish of it. I do. Hence, the salve of skippy - the moral equivalent of a pint of Guinness on this fine evening.

Four More Years! Four More Years!

It was a cold January day four years ago when this blog was born. Warren Zevon (gone only four months) was on my mind when I added "My Dirty Life & Times" after my own name and conceived this space as a place to share what was on my mind, regardless of anyone else's interest. As it turns out, there was a fair amount of interest - in politics, media, baseball, music, and general observations of a verbose middle-aged guy from New York - and many of you have shared the ride. My view then, confirmed since, was that life holds many twists and turns, that most of what we see and think and pretend to know is written in shades of gray. I give you my version. You knock it down (or agree, or add some detail), and we have a conversation.

This community has been very important to me over those four years, but I'm taking a bit of a break - and it's for a good reason.

I've signed to write a book that's due to my publisher later this spring. The book is called CauseWired, and it explores the collision of media technology with social, charitable, and political causes. My experiences here will figure prominently in the book, which will identify the major trends in wired social causes and seek to draw some key conclusions. So who'll want to read it? I'm hoping it will appeal to a wide group of people in business, in the nonprofit world, in politics, and even in the general reading public.

I hope the timing is good. The business pages are filled with stories of start-up companies and massive valuations. Google grows ever more rapidly into a global powerhouse. And the reach of social networks like Facebook stretches every day. Americans are living more of their lives in public, creating vast lists of online “friends” and professional colleagues, sharing their experiences, their taste in music, their political choices, and even their personal lives.

No trend is hotter than the rush to create social networks, the vast intertwined next generation of the web that promises real-time connection and communication. Americans of all ages are taking part, but no group is more enthusiastic – and more empowered – than the so-called “millennials,” that demographic slice of our society that has never known life without the Internet. These young men and women now entering the workforce for the first time have lived much of their lives online, and they bring with them in their introduction to the national economy – and our society – great expectations for lightning-fast communications, openness and transparency, and the ability to change the landscape quickly.

At the same time, the world is a smaller place. Genocide in remote villages in the east African nation of Darfur is covered by Google maps that show the devastation and religious cleansing, while hundreds of bloggers write about the terrible story – not merely passing along links from mainstream media organizations, but urging action and placing a premium on their own opinion. On Facebook, the fastest-growing online social network in the world, hundreds of thousands of people – students, young professionals, political action committees, and even gray-haired CEOs and captains of industry – signal their support for stopping the slaughter and helping the victims by placing badges on their individual profiles. Video sharing brings the story home, and thousands of digital photographs are trade and posted on blogs and social networks. Keywords and tags allow anyone interested in the topic to explore a massive cultural document – the living expansion of the topic in public consciousness – through blog networks and search engines. Darfur becomes more than a yellowing news-clipping down in the backroom of the public library, more than a research report, more than a news story from far away. It becomes a cause. More accurately, Darfur becomes "CauseWired."

Yes, it's a term of art - and what business book these days would be complete without a blog. Some of you may have noticed that I've been very quietly blogging about this subject at CauseWired.com over the last month or so. Well, I'm going public today - the fourth anniversary of my personal blog - and I hope to see you all over there.

A note: this blog is not going dark - it will remain active, but I just won't post as often as I have been (this presidential race is confounding my attempts to beat the book deadline, I can tell you). And as I've said in each of the last three "anniversary" posts: I owe you all a hearty thanks for your time, your attention, your loyalty, and your vicious mud-slinging.

Rock Those Holiday Blues

Regular readers may occasionally detect a case of Christmas jaundice around the edges of this normally ruddy blogospheric mein. But I really do enjoy the most Wonderful Time of the Year™ . Sort of, in small doses, all involving the observation of a certain childish delight I no longer possess. Lucky for me, my friends Neddie Jingo and Blue Girl groove to a more authentic holiday beat. In what's become a Yuletide tradition, they've once again bridged the digital miles in song with a brilliant musical mash-up of Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree. That's the Nedman on guitar and all other instruments, and Blue Girl on lead vocals. Ned's production is great, and the girl can bring the sing. The graphic's pretty groovy too, thanks to the Skimmer. Oh, and here's last year's number, Christmastime is Here, a wonderful recording. Pass the eggnog, this Christmas is looking up.