Daily Dixie

I actually was excited about blogging again. But then it happened. My contact page went awry and I had to spend an hour fixing it. It wasn’t terribly inconvenient, but it did sour the memory of my blogging times. There were good times, but there were also hours and hours… and hours of administrative necessity. Making sure websites on my sidebars were still active, adding new functionality to stay in the cool-blog crowd, having to modify the website to satisfy anyone who used the latest Commodore XP JungleFever^TM web browser.

Then there’s the fact that I’m not only supposed to “know about” state politics, I suddenly require myself to be an expert. I’ve got to remember that State Senator Curt Lee brought his girlfriend to the State House (and shortly thereafter become “former State Senator Curt Lee”) just in case I can somehow use that in a joke. If some dude I’ve never met is running for office, I’d better know if he, his daddy, or his great-uncle’s ex-girlfriend is anyone of interest to state history or politics. Lots of research and lots of remembering.

Then there’s the fact that I feel unworthy of my traffic because I typically just read other blogs and the news to get my information. So I feel compelled to go to meetings, forums, and to actually talk to the people I’m covering.

Then there’s the posts. If I haven’t written a post in 3 hours, I start feeling guilty. Somewhere there’s someone on the computer hitting “refresh” on my blog and looking sad. So I come home exhausted from hacking kudzu off of power poles (true story); I want to just veg out but I feel an obligation to write a post about something - ANYTHING! I haven’t written anything in like 5 hours! And of course there are about 10 emails in my inbox asking, “Hey man, are you dead?”

And just when I’m about ready to calm down and not worry about it, I get an email from someone saying, “Dude, you’re incredibly smart and I find your blog incredible. And you’re a handsome devil to boot,” or “I vote because of you,” or some such nonsense that pushes me along.

But the worst part is when it’s been a few hours and my inbox is empty and there are no new comments on any of the posts I’ve written. That’s when I really start stressing. What, this isn’t worthy of a comment? I spent two hours writing that! My favorite posts are completely ignored. Instead, I get 89 comments for calling Troy King a homo.

So I see Brian from Flashpoint today and he asks, “How’s it feel to be blogging again?”

I reply, “It sucks.”

After some detailed negotiations we reach a deal. I get to blog when I want, about anything I want as long as it’s relatively topical to his website. In return, I accept a salary slightly below my preferred compensation level.

I explained the story to my good friend Frank, and he asked how I felt about “working at a practically-Republican rag of a blog that used to be nothing more than a little spec of competition to the magnificent Daily Dixie.”

I reply, “It sucks.”

No no, I’m kidding. Flashpoint has some great reach and respect. It’s probably more popular than Daily Dixie ever was (b/c more people read blogs now, not because I ever sucked). It’s the best of both worlds for me really. Brian has already built the readership base, he takes care of all the technical stuff and, he and Reactionary generate content regularly enough that I don’t feel compelled to write a post every hour. I just get to sit back and blow everyone’s mind every now and then. At least that’s the plan.

So see me at Flashpoint. I’ll write a “hello” post when I feel like it.