Saturday, July 11, 2015

the 9000th post

This is officially the Hairy Chasms' 9,000th post!


July 4th came and went without my having acknowledged this blog's 12th blogiversary (I started in 2003), but we couldn't miss ol' nine thousand, now, could we?

It's been a good twelve years. I've written about anything and everything. I also notice, with grim satisfaction, that my blog has outlasted quite a few of the old-guard Koreablogs (although, truth be told, I never really thought of myself as a true Koreablog, given how infrequently Korea itself actually appears as a blog topic), including the blogs of temporarily popular bloggers who hated my blog, like Brian Deutsch of Brian in Jeollanamdo, a guy that once singled me out as the blogger who offended his bitchy sensibilities the most. Well... he's gone and I'm still here, like herpes. I'm chugging along while these weaklings and haters have all pussied out. (NB: I mean no disrespect to those now-defunct blogs that I sincerely admired, like Incestuous Amplification and Lost Nomad.) True, I never had the site traffic that these bloggers had—probably never will—but those guys certainly didn't garner such traffic because they were superior writers: they simply focused on a single theme or a very limited cluster of topics, which is how you gain the hits. Those of us who write on everything can never expect to have anything like that kind of audience, and that's fine. And as for the haters, well... fuck 'em. Fuck 'em right in the ass with a splintery broomstick. They all eventually lose steam and fade back into the garbage whence they came.

On a more positive note: blogging continues to be my outlet, my therapy. I love doing it. It remains a great way to get things off my chest. It also continues to be a resource for future book projects. I've been thinking about compiling some of the humorous posts that have accumulated over the years to make a sort-of sequel to Scary Spasms in Hairy Chasms. I've also been thinking about creating a textbook based on my many movie reviews. A possible followup to, or revision of, Water from a Skull might also be in the works. This blog is a trove of ideas—some well developed, some half-baked—just waiting to be mined.

Ever since I opened up my comments section years ago, I've received interesting and informative reactions from some of my five readers. Other readers have chosen to remain silent over the years, preferring to be, in the common parlance, "lurkers." That's a bit frustrating to me, as I've long wanted to build some sort of commenter community in which the commenters talk to each other as much as they talk to me, but that's not where we are. It could be that my draconian comments policy is at fault, but I feel the policy I have in place merely reflects the basics of civil discourse. Occasionally I'll receive an asshole comment—something insulting or accusatory or condescending or boneheaded, or some combination thereof—and I'll simply delete it so that it never sees the light of day. It's up to me to keep my own place clean, and I try to do a scrupulous job. Still, despite the occasional work involved in policing those rare appearances of verbal sludge, I enjoy most of the comments I receive, and even—gasp—learn from them.

Where do we go from here? Hard to say. All I do know is that I'll keep blogging, day by day, for as long as blogging interests me. I earn no money from this, but blogging has its perks (most of them psycho-spiritual), and that's why I keep at it. I can only hope that my five readers are entertained and/or enriched by my efforts. I can never say, from day to day, what topic might strike my fancy—an unpredictability that contributes to the blog's desultory nature and gives it such limited appeal—but as long as I have an audience of even one reader, I'll feel that I'm communicating something to someone.

But now it is time to dance the 9000-post dance.


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12 comments:

  1. Congrats and many happy returns! (I was going to go somewhere with that but it didn't pan out.)

    Anyway, I always look forward to my visits here and appreciate your efforts. Looking forward to the next 9000 posts.

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  2. Congrats, Kevin. You, the other Kevin (of Incestuous Amplification), the Lost Nomad and Koehler (sp? - not one post by him on the front page of his blog today) got me interested in blogging.

    You have successfully walked a fine line of sharing personal details without oversharing such details. We know how often you go to the bathroom in a day but not your last name.

    You have written about Korea, humour, religion, world events... Only someone who posts, what, three times a day, could cover such a range.

    I did find it weird that you posted so often during your CrossWalk, but I suspect you can't leave the blogosphere for more than twelve hours before your hands start shaking.

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  3. Brian,

    Well, as I mentioned, blogging is therapeutic for me, so why would I shun my therapy? As for posting frequently during my cross-country walk—you'll be happy to know that I was, at the time, using Canadian technology: a BlackBerry. It was great, but it died on me about halfway through the trip and I had to get it replaced while I shacked up at a hotel; the replacement lasted me the rest of the walk and through my mother's cancer before it, too, eventually gave up the ghost.

    Robert's blog is no longer his own. He's basically become a co-blogger among co-bloggers, and The Marmot's Hole is essentially a team blog. That's kind of a shame; I liked it better when it was just Robert's voice, but I can't really critique his turn toward diversity, not after what I said in the above post about the satisfactions of blogging about everything. Robert lost his focus by including team members; I never had any focus because I've been an omnibus blogger since the beginning. We're both diverse in our own ways. The only real reproach I have against Robert's blog isn't against Robert himself, but against his damn commenters. Some of them are smart fellows, but the majority of them are fucking idiots.

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  4. Congrats on reaching 9,000 and I hope you have many more in the future. Yours is one of the very few blogs I still read on a regular basis and I've enjoyed keeping up with your various adventures over the years.
    I stopped blogging for 2 reasons: I got to a point where it started being more of a chore than a pleasure and I was starting to get some attention from certain military organizations that I didn't care to have.
    The Marmot's Hole has become a shell of its former self; IMO it's time to stick a fork in it and call it done.

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  5. Frank,

    Your blog and Kevin's IA were the two Koreablogs I respected the most (I'd include my friend Charles's Liminality, but as is true with my blog, I'm not sure to what extent it's a Koreablog, per se). It was a real shame to lose you both; the blogosphere has only gotten dimmer (and I can't be bothered to read most of the fluffy new-wave Koreablogs out there). Thank you for the kind words; I'll try to be worthy of them.

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  6. Congrats on your being long-winded. Or is that long-livid. Or is it long-lived? Well, congrats on your excellent spew ability. 9,000 posts is most definitely a lot of spew.

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  7. And I can always count on your drivel to be tacked onto my spew. Thanks, John. But why not start your own blog instead of playing the chronic commenter? I know you haunt Jeff's blog as well, and I'm sure you're on a few others. If you've got so much to say, so much wisdom to share, why not just blog on your own?

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  8. Wow - nine thousand!

    Keep it up, Kevin. I can promise you'll always have at least one reader.

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  9. I stumbled across this a little late. Congratulations on the longevity! . . . and I'm sorry I was mean to you online before. I don't remember what I wrote, but if it's anything like the a lot of the other stuff on my site, it would probably make me cringe now. (Actually, I just found what I wrote about you and the "big boys" back in 2008 in a post about "blog juice" . . . it's not something I'm happy to revisit.)

    It's been about 6 years since I lived in Korea and blogged, which is several generations in Korea-blog years. That's long enough to have learned that bitchy opinionated rant don't age well. I've written before that if I had Korea to do over again, I definitely wouldn't have the BiJ blog be anything like it was. That's bittersweet because I did end up meeting lots of interesting people through it. But I did learn, too, that many of the smartest and best-adjusted people don't waste their time pretending to be clever for an audience. Anyway, congratulations again on doing your thing, and thank you for the memories.

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  10. Brian,

    Thanks for stopping by. Sorry about the "bitchy sensibilities" thing, but if I'm to be honest with you, yeah, I was miffed, especially since I felt I hadn't done anything specifically to tick you off. But, hey—water under the bridge.

    There's nothing stopping you from starting up again, of course. Commenting on Korean affairs (if that's still your thing) is just as doable from the States as it is from within Korea. A lot of people would like to see you return to form.

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