Dealing With The Imperative

e-mail out just now to a dear old.net.fighter --

A.,

> Your blog posts are home runs, every damn one
> of em. You have an unique role on this earth, at
> this crossroads.

That's the thing: this crossroads.

Look, man...

> I'm out of it. Lost my creative spark after a -- well,
> shit, maybe a small stroke. Arm went dead, foot
> hurt like hell for about six months and when I
> tried to write, nothing came out like it used to.
> Couldn't force a whole thought on the page.

... I don't know what you can do anymore. But I know what I've been going through. I know a bunch of people who did great work in Usenet for years on end and aren't seen or heard of anymore. I think one of them is about to move into his car on a beach in South Carolina. There have been enormous costs in all this already.

It has become a sneaking idea in my mind for at least six months: "Just give up the blog, man. Stop it. You're not doing it justice and you're just embarrassing yourself out there." After six years, I'm at about five thousand readers a week. I'm proud of that. I pissed-off Glenn Reynolds when I said he was stupid; I very much hesitate to call my old mate Bruce McQuain this week down in ATL; I've been kicked out of comments in more blogs than anyone I know of, by whole orders of magnitude; and it's been just a handful of people linking me here & there and my own -- what? stubborness? -- that's brought it this far.

You know what happens to me when I sit down at this desk in the morning? I long to see that the circle of understanding is getting wider. Time is running very short.

It's been just the last week or so that it's occurred to me that Obama -- "this crossroads" -- is going to keep the thing alive.

I've occasionally thought to myself that I could keep the thing going on major news stories, rather like skipping a stone across a pond. The day-to-day cop hemocides and venal corruption in every goddamned spot on the map doesn't do it, though. Another 9/11 would naturally strike sparks, but look: the Obama regime is the story, but it needs depths of treatment that only very few are up to.

We are now in the fait accompli of American soclialist revolution. Most peoples' ignorance of history doesn't allow them to really grasp how rapidly this is happening now, but this wheel is turning like never before.

I have no illusions that I can change any of it, but I am beginning to see new inspiration -- if we can call it that, but it's more like desperation -- toward better work on the blog.

We'll damned see.

> Billy, I was a writer and filmmaker. Sad that's it
> over. But man you're great and I think you
> know it.

I do. What I don't necessarily think is that I'm living up to it.

> Anyway a lot of us are listening respectfully.

Thank you, sir. I appreciate that a lot.