EXCUSE ME, I MUST BE GOING...
...It has been a pleasure and a privilege doing this so diligently for the past couple of months but my most difficult work period is coming up and truthfully, I've kind of lost my zest for this once again. It's kind of silly to be so wrapped up in things 5000 miles away which, with any luck, I won't have to deal with for a long while.
There's a whole finesse and technique to being part of this deal which I never mastered. Neither with politics nor sports nor humor. Maybe it was the lack of doo-dads and graphics. Or my opinions sucked. Probably the latter. And if I haven't gotten it down after two years and change, I never will. Knowing one's limitations is as liberating as learning a new skill. Or so I've been told. I've got severe limitations in this to be sure. And if I have spare time this fall, I think learning Arabic and Hebrew would be a better use of my time and everyone else's.
And to be in position of ever letting my business partners down because I'm blogging and watching Star Trek or something would be retarded. Or to miss out on an easy game. Or some other opportunity. Not that that would happen, but you all know what I mean.
I believe I gave it the good ol' college try. But as James Mason said in The Verdict, "you're not here to try; you're here to win." I'm not winning. I am probably a small net minus to the blogosphere all told. If anyone has any paricular interest in getting my point of view of something, he or she knows where I can be found.
Kelso's Nuts love you
16 comments:
Kelso, I understand completely. Blogging can become an addiction of sorts and to do it well takes a real commitment and can be really, really exhausting. And, in the end, what's it all for?
But for the record, I think your complete lack of "blog bling" is refreshing.
Sorry I stopped back so late in the game. Be well, my friend.
Them's the facts, Jack. Maybe it was an unpleasant phone call a little while ago from Julian's mother that got me irritated, but the more and more I thought about it, the sillier this all seemed, with NHL around the corner. A trip to Moscow looming. And the bare facts that I'm a crap blogger but a very good gambler and investor. And that's where my energies should be focused.
Maybe it was discovering that FAIRLANE and I had both been bounced by BlueGal, which augured nothing good for Kelso in the blogosphere. He and I are kind of birds of a feather although he's a hillbilly and I'm a city-boy.
There is a whole protocol to doing this properly which I have neither the time nor the inclination to figure out and maybe it's best to leave on a good note rather than get dropped by even more blogrolls. Despite recent good work, I think I've been dropped by no fewer than 5. Now, I don't like this whole tag and roll thing and you know why, but there's a reason I'm getting dropped and it's not because I'm GOOD!
It's because I lack finesse. I lack the understanding of the landscape and wouldn't working on my Omaha and Hold Em plus learning Arabic and Hebrew serve me better than doing something I'm really not well-equipped to do.
Look, I spelled it out in my letter to you. I know why I suck. I'm too coarse and too educated at the same time. But that's who I am. I can't change. I'm not always going to be so lucky as to have people like you, D-Cap, D-Cup, and Fairlane reading me. And that's the core.
I also didn't particularly care for Fairlane's tale of being investigated by Wordpress. The last thing I need is that.
Maybe I'll change my mind. But I really have to organize my priorities and do things in order of importance. If blogging is the thing I do worst, why do it so much?
Anita:
Unfortunately, la verga is all it's for.
And you and I Anita are particularly ill-suited to the medium because of our eclecticism. We have MBAs and social consciences. We are pacifists but we handle the dark side. We try to call 'em as we see 'em but that doesn't always work. Look how jammed up I got just by doing a little travelogue that mentioned going to La Gallera San Miguelito. Had I really pressed the issue, I would have blown about 4 more blogrolls.
In Tom Paxton's lovely song "Crazy John" about John Lennon he says "...when people get lost/they start building a cross..." Right-wingers do it quicker and more aggressively. So-called "left-wingers" (I'd say PC-moderates) do it slowly and gently. Unless you prefer an urban left-wing agenda of peace, social justice and a strong economy over pollution and earthworms' rights not to be fishbait, in which case, they, too, move fast to get you up there. Either way, it's folks like us carryin' the stigmata!
Christ, Anita...did you see me get my ass-whupped on some site for the mere fact of HAVING AN MBA! As if I were ashamed of that!
i hope youre just teasing me..
xoxo
The HORROR! Kelso, what will happen to my newly rediscovered closet liberalism? Although I will miss your thought-provoking discourses, I do respect your decision. You put more work into your blogs than anyone else I've seen. Most people (including me, of course) just rattle stuff off the top of their heads, but you actually go into *brain* territory. I could never make myself devote so much time and effort to my piddly little site. I suppose that I will eventually take my balls and go home too. It is certainly discouraging to have so little response.
I wish you well in all your endeavors. You probably have more excitement in one day of gaming than I have had in the past ten years.
Oh, just for the record, I do *not* know "where to find" you...
Blonde Dynamite:
Teasing you about what?
Z:
I'm not removing the blog. I'm so compulsive about stuff, I'll probably be blogging again in three days.
You can find me right here
i surely dont want to read the same post over and over and over again --- it is like some bad ronald reagan movie ---
do what you must, you will be sorely missed by this sole..........and for all your refreshing and incisive way of expression
Fairlane:
You are absolutely one person whom I've met in the blogosphere who is NOT an asshole. You said you speak hillbilly, but I don't believe yeee haaawww is hillbilly because I knew some coaltown cats back in the day and neither said yeee hawwww.
Oh hell, in for a penny in for a pound. It was when I lived in Las Vegas. One of them ran from casino to casino for us to play head-to-head horse matchups. The other dealt pot and hustled tennis and one-on-one basketball. They used to have orgies but I never went because I don't smoke weed and the girls were always pretty scurvy.
The guy who ran for us, went back to WV and got into some very bad trouble in Charlestown although I think he was originally from Chester. Doubt I'll ever see him again. The tennis and hoops hustler got married and adopted a child, stayed in Summerlin and went completely straight. His wife is a shrink and he coaches a high school tennis team.
Jesus, that story's no good either. It's almost as bad as having gone to see the birds at San Miguelito. They'll never let me back on BlueGal now.
But I'll be back here and on Jonestown once I get my head together which will probably be after I've gotten used to NOT having my son here again.
Kelso, take a well-deserved rest from a burst of superb writing over the last few weeks. So good was the writing, we even let a few things slide that you could've been called out on if not so persuasively argued, Like the one on Judeo-Christian values where you posited yourself as the typical Jew and Jim Dobson as the typical Gentile. Your version of Jewness is splendid and in the Augie March tradition -- but I would say the "typical" Jew is concerned less about, say, the line on the Mayweather-whoever fight or the quality of play at the 25-50 Omaha NL game in the Panama Ciy casino, and more about whether this whole Roth IRA thing makes sense or whether Upromise college savings plan has good funds. Also how many calories are in a Frappucino and which online store has the best deal on the Sopranos Season 7 dvds. That's about the upper limit of the excitement. As for a typical Gentile, how about your friend Tony G? I would say Tony and I share values more than me and a random Muslim, but then again I admit I don't know too many Muslims and the few I do know are really nice. But Scientologists, no way. Their creation myth involves some kind of spacemen and Travolta in dreadlocks and whatever else. Almost as nuts as the Mormon story.
On CBGB, the other day I was listening to Little Johnny Jewel on the Ipod and realized that the musicality would've put Television in about the middle of the groups I heard last week at the School of Rock graduation concert. They were better than the group of 12 year olds who played God Save the Queen, but not as good as Polygon and the Tesselations, whose original song blew my (typical Jewish) mind. By the way all, go on youtube and look up that band and check out the second song -- then you can lord it over someone at a party when they talk about the A-Sides or some other new band and you can say, "Oh, really? Don't you know Polygon and the Tesselations? Yeah, from the School of Rock 2007 Summer session free CD, well that's what I'M into right now." Don't get me wrong, though, I love Television; it's just that we are entering a new era of guitar heroes, inspired by the movie School of Rock, who are 12-14 now and will be astounding in 5-10 years.
One of my best CBGB memories was seeing the Mekons with Kelso, I think. I liked that the DJ there always kept the playlist eclectic, so you could hear things like Joe Ely, Michelle Shocked, etc. All those nights I was sitting in the dorm at Columbia reading Tristram Shandy, when I could've been down there seeing Talking Heads, Ramones, etc., make me really sad.
Onto Iran. Eugah supports a limited strike to knock out their nuclear facilities, a la Osirak. Discuss.
Finally, what are "blogrolls"?
I am more than a little devastated but since I adore you I must support you.
Wow. I have really come to rely on stopping by here and to seeing your comments on my blog. Its only been a short time and so selfish on my part, but I hate to see you go.
What else can I say? L'hitraot comes to mind.
While I understand I still feel really, really sad.
Espero hablarlo muy pronto amigo.
Well, Kelso, my friend with no friends, since you mention that I don't hold back, here goes...
I wish you well as you move on to the next thing. I understand the need to change things up. My heart aches for you and your son. I can hope that situation will resolve itself in a way that benefits all emotionally. A boy needs his dad.
I will look for you to come back. I look forward to your thought-provoking posts. Who the fuck else writes things like the I believe the Confederacy won the replay of the Civil War on 9/11/01. Other than outright slavery -- which will come back -- which aspect of antebellum "values" are not either codified in law or re-enshrined in the culture??
No one. Get that? No one.
I often consider recalibrating my priorities. As I've intensified running with the pack you listed in the comment above, my paid work has suffered. I've given up feeding my family - mostly - and I don't even vacuum daily anymore.
Because the thoughts matter. The words matter.You matter. You would not believe how your initial comment on my post about the "it can't happen here" idea triggered a process in our family. We realized that we really should get serious about next steps.
There you sit, so far away in Panama, and you've reached across the many miles and given a good, hard shove to five people who were feeling an impending what? Doom? Maybe that's too strong a word. But a sense that things are spiraling out of control. With that verbal shove, you fueled an ongoing discussion that hasn't really stopped.
So go knowing that you've served many purposes. You've done good work. Crazy as it seems, I consider the regular commenters at PoliTits a sort of community. Each person has a role and each is vital.
Your windows may be dark for a while. We'll stop by to collect your mail and toss your newspapers over the fence. You always were leaving on short notice without stopping those deliveries.......
See ya around. DCups Cups love you.
D-CUP:
Thank you so much for your kindness. I think things like my Civil War metaphor are exactly why my traffic is so light and I get kicked off mainstream liberal blogs. It just sails over most peoples' heads and instead of TRYING TO UNDERSTAND they reflexively attack or find some way to ENFORCE. What can I say, that attitude pervades the American consciousness even in lefty blogland. Overmatched in some way? Don't emulate, call a cop!
It's also why I have such an excellent core of bright and curious readers who always have a lesson to teach me.
But on days when my "base" is busy with their own lives, it feels like I'm baying at the moon.
Once I get a sense of my daily schedule for the next couple of months, I'll pick up writing again. For now, it was nice last night to have a long meaningless skype call with a business partner.
Kelso - anytime you want to talk about the crazy little country I call home for now, ring me on skype. I'm there.
what is your skype identity--email me bdk7@nyc.rr.com
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