Nicisms

Gladly one of my resolutions this year was not to blog more. If it had been I would have failed in a massive way already.

Blogging still bores me somewhat right now. I honestly don’t know if I am going to recover sufficiently to allow myself to actually maintain 2 blogs and a lifestream (nicharalambous.me). I’m over it. I’m over talking, writing, opinions, publishing and the bollocks that goes along with it.

I’m frustrated and fed up. When is the next big thing getting here? I’m bored.

I’ve just surpassed (with this very blog post) my 1000th article on this blog.

I am very interested to know how many blog posts people have on their blogs.

Bloggers seem to have been around for ages and ages and I think I’d be surprised how many of them have actually written a boat load of posts. I’d love to know how many the likes of Mike, Matt, Vince, Cherryflava, coda, Justin, Keo, Paul, Charl, Rafiq, Elan, Gino, Tyler, Vinny, Quirk, Ideate, Tertia, Ray, Chris and Mark have written.

If you have a count, pop it in the comments.

Bored. That is what us bloggers must be. Why? Because we seem to be so preoccupied recently (a phenomenon that has coincided with some interesting arrivals of late) with who is who and doing what and how often in our wondrously massive local blogging community.

Those who are mentioned “seem to not care” but care enough to blog about themselves being blogged about. I have been mentioned a fair amount and I am now partaking in my own condemnation (oh the irony). I am blogging about blogs by bloggers on blogging and bloggers and who’s the bestest of the best and whose daddy is bigger than whose mommy and who has the nicest fanciest shmanciest housiest home or rather, blog, and who is more influential than who and how often they influence those that influence others.

Can I just chime in here and say that I actually think it’s a load of rubbish. In spite of my participation in Mandy’s “Top Ten bloggers” post over at MoneyWeb I honestly think it’s irrelevant. Mandy asked on twitter yesterday: “Who has more influece?” and listed three bloggers for others to compare. Link. Bait. It’s link baiting. Not journalism. It’s irrelevant in my opinion (and only in my opinion). What does matter is that its time we refocus our energy on relevant content for the every day reader. Not the bloggers who blog about blogging.

Has content become so drab and non existent that we have turned to each other, looked one another in the blog and decided that we are the only content relevant enough to blog about? Are you kidding me?

I reiterate that I grasp the fact that I am doing the same thing right now that I am condemning, do not point it out in the comments, I get it, I know that I am doing it but occasionally it is unavoidable.

What I am getting at is that people like to stir the pot, we like to back rub, we like to have our backs rubbed, we all do and we all know it, we just can’t help ourselves. It’s the old adage that people like to see themselves on TV, look at America’s Funniest Home Videos. That show has never gone away and it’s because there are regular people focusing on people like themselves. That doesn’t make it good content though. It just makes it long-lasting.

Maybe it’s time I shift my focus to writing for readers, not bloggers. Writing for people and writing about things that people like to read. In my opinion readers don’t like to read about bloggers blogging about blogs and other bloggers egos and ranks and pages and pageranks and technorati and lists and links… see I’m bored already.

If you blog you might be read but there is also chance that you might not be. But one thing is certain, if you don’t blog you will never be read.

The past week or so I have not blogged at all. I think it was a necessary break for me. I have been suffering from over-exposure to blogging, online bubbles, “inner-circles” and circular debates, discussions and topics. I think I’ve saturated my interests and lost some semblance of relevance recently.

I’m happy to admit that.

Stii said it the other day on twitter and I think I’m willing to reiterate it here; “If you have nothing good to say then rather don’t say anything at all.” And I haven’t.

However, I’ve been taken to task, not literally but in my rankings, stats and anylitics on both this blog and SA Rocks.

That basic premise is that when I blog, people read. Not always or every time but there is a greater chance that people read what I write when I actually get around to writing. I’ve been relentless with SA Rocks, blogging every week day for almost an entire year straight. This can take its toll and I think it has taken its toll on me.

At this point blogging becomes a chore that one is obligated to complete. I don’t want that to be the case and nor do my readers.

I personally feel like publishers of blogs in SA have become a bit stagnant of late, nit-picky and petty on various issues (myself included) and this has thrown me out of whack and left me with little colleague-initiated inspiration or motivation.

There’s nothing wrong with that, ebbs and flows I think, ebbs and flows. These things take place and then bounce back and get better or worse. For now though I think that my recent illness which prompted a tactical break from blogging has helped me to realise the mutually beneficial relationship I share with my readers and fellow bloggers in SA. I need them to inspire me and keep me on my toes and they read what I write. Without one the other suffers.

In the end, if you never write, you’ll never be read but if I write myself in to a circle it’s sometimes better not to write at all.

I watched an interesting movie recently that made me think about language, poetry, writing and the modern-day poet.

I love language. It’s part of the reason that I became a journalist initially. Language is the media that portrays a message, evokes an emotion, tells a story and more literally allows us to communicate with one another. However I have forgotten how to enjoy my obsession with language in the last four years or so. I went to varsity and language became a means to an end not the end result.

What I mean by this is simple, poets make language their result. Yes the message exists but it is enhanced through the language they use, the words they choose and the sorts of construction that they decide to make use of.

If you don’t know anything about poetry and wondered what all the high-faluted hype was about do yourself a favour and read up about poetry a bit. Then go and read Frost, Thomas, Cummings, Blake and Eliot for a start. These are the greats of the past and the definitive poets of “our time”. The reason I say “our time” is that these poets are not part of my time, my era or existence.

Here are snippets of some of my favourite poet’s writings:

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

And another:

why must itself up every of a park
by E. E. Cummings

why must itself up every of a park

anus stick some quote statue unquote to

prove that a hero equals any jerk

who was afraid to dare to answer “no”?

Now tell me something. Who are the the poets of my era? Who wrote the great words of my time? Who told the stories that would define the present-day history?

I would like to suggest that musicians today have become the poets of yesteryear.

Here are some examples:

There’s always somebody taller with more of a wit
And he’s equipped to enthrall her and her friends think he’s fit
And you just can’t measure up though, you don’t have a prayer
Wishing that you’d made the most of her when she was there

They’ve got engaged there’s no intention of a wedding
He’s pinched ya bird and he’d probably kick your head in

Bigger boys and stolen sweethearts
Oh, you’re better off without her anyway
You said you wasn’t sad to see her go
Yeah, but I know you were though

Now you don’t know what she’s up to you can only assume
If she’s not in the front of the shops then they’ve gone to his room
Bet she’s gone ’round in her school stuff, bet that’s what he likes
I know you thought she were different and you thought she were nice

But she’s not nice, she’s pretty fucking far from nice
She’s looking at you funny rarely looking at you twice

That is a band I love, the Arctic Monkeys. The writing above, without the music, is poetry to me. It might not be an iambic pentameter. But Poetry, it is.

The next example is from Greenday, one of the definitive bands of my era and I think one of the definitive poetry sources of my time.

I’m the son of rage and love
The Jesus of Suburbia
From the bible of none of the above
On a steady diet of soda pop and Ritalin
No one ever died for my sins in hell
As far as I can tell
At least the ones I got away with

And there’s nothing wrong with me
This is how I’m supposed to be
In a land of make believe
That don’t believe in me

Get my television fix sitting on my crucifix
The living room or my private womb
While the moms and brads are away
To fall in love and fall in debt
To alcohol and cigarettes and Mary Jane
To keep me insane and doing someone else’s cocaine

And there’s nothing wrong with me
This is how I’m supposed to be
In a land of make believe
That don’t believe in me

Above is part 1 of “Jesus of Suburbia”.

Next is one of my favourite songs from the last 5 years, The Foo Fighters and “Best of You”:

I’ve got another confession to make
I’m your fool
Everyone’s got their chains to break
Holdin’ you

Were you born to resist or be abused?
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?
Are you gone and onto someone new?

I needed somewhere to hang my head
Without your noose
You gave me something that I didn’t have
But had no use
I was too weak to give in
Too strong to lose
My heart is under arrest again
But I break loose
My head is giving me life or death
But I can’t choose
I swear I’ll never give in
No, I refuse

Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?
Has someone taken your faith?
Its real, the pain you feel
Your trust, you must
Confess

So to answer my own question, where are the poets of today, the modern-day writers that define our present-day history, they are in music, in the popular form of communication today. Poetry is no longer in the mainstream as it was back in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, today it is music and the musicians, songwriters and definitive minds might just exist in our music.

For more poets of today I suggest reading:
Lennon
Dylan
Marley
Stevens
Matthews
Apple
Taylor
King
Nirvana (Kurt Cobain)
Oasis
Tupac Shakur
Chapman

Who would you consider poets of your era? Which poets do you read? What would you classify as poetry?